


not so typical

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Illustrated, M/M, Mer AU, minor sargrey, warning: simmons is a recent amputee and is bitter and self-hatey as hell about it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2018-12-23 01:41:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11979426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: Simmons, injured and recovering and not of much use to anyone, is sent to along with a skeleton crew to guard the curious Doctor Grey from nothing at all as she studies the utterly boring, empty, out of the way newly discovered planet, W-W-413. Nothing's there besides water, more water, and maybe some fish swimming in it.Some unusually exotic fish, perhaps.





	1. the best humanity saw fit to offer

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by [this](http://captainkonot.tumblr.com/post/164848004608/commission-for-primtheamazing-who-wanted-a) absolutely lovely piece of art by captainkonot! They have also generously given me their permission to include their wonderful artwork in the fic itself, so that's super cool! They also contributed [this](https://68.media.tumblr.com/0052bbf095f44e4d02a157d885d0ecf3/tumblr_messaging_owkex2i2O11r38etp_1280.jpg) great pic of Sarge and Simmons from chapter 3 here. And [this](https://68.media.tumblr.com/f21246ef0db3be662ddb3029f9504397/tumblr_messaging_owkgu78yIn1r38etp_1280.jpg) illustration of another scene from chapter two! 
> 
> And [this](http://creatrixanimi.tumblr.com/post/165455516052/a-mer-grif-from-primtheamazing-s-alien-mermaid) lovely illustration of a Grif from chapter four is by the wonderful [creatrixanimi](http://creatrixanimi.tumblr.com)! This was so great of you, omg. It has been embedded into the chapter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, losing two of your limbs and an eye in an explosion isn’t enough to get you sent home in the eyes of the UNSC. Just walk it off, soldier! You signed up for four years, no choice but to follow through! Simmons was given a pat on his bandaged back, a dinky little medal that he’s sure his father might reward him with a few seconds worth of eye contact for, a few months intense physical therapy, a little light plastic surgery for the worst of the scarring on his face, a glass eye, a prosthetic leg that he’d describe during one of his better days as “adequately functional”, and nothing for his arm, unless you count the prescription for the painkillers that he’s already dreading losing what seems like far too soon. If it hurts this much _with_ them, what’s it going to be like without them?

Apparently, losing two of your limbs and an eye in an explosion isn’t enough to get you sent home in the eyes of the UNSC. Just walk it off, soldier! You signed up for four years, no choice but to follow through! Simmons was given a pat on his bandaged back, a dinky little medal that he’s sure his father might reward him with a few seconds worth of eye contact for, a few months intense physical therapy, a little light plastic surgery for the worst of the scarring on his face, a glass eye, a prosthetic leg that he’d describe during one of his better days as “adequately functional”, and nothing for his arm, unless you count the prescription for the painkillers that he’s already dreading losing what seems like far too soon. If it hurts this much _with_ them, what’s it going to be like without them?

Simmons is sure that they’ll get around to getting him a prosthetic arm eventually though, so he’ll be able to hold an assault rifle again if nothing else. For now, he’s stuck with his handgun. And a mission so boring that there’s no way he’ll be able to get a promotion for it no matter what he does. He’s been assigned to the small, personal, and--he strongly suspect-- _insignificant_ guard to a UNSC scientist that’s going nowhere special or interesting for the next six months. The only reason Doctor Grey’s getting a guard at all is for formality’s sake, because sending in a non-combatant that isn’t officially cleared to handle any weapons to an un-terraformed planet is against regulations and would open up the army to a lawsuit if anything somehow went wrong.

He knows that the only reason he’s here is because he’s practically useless, still recovering from his serious injuries. They’re just finding somewhere to put him so that they don’t have to send him home and lose a body, or, god forbid, just let him _rest_ until he recovers, slowly draining away money without giving anything back in return. At least here, on this mission where absolutely nothing is guaranteed to happen, Simmons is making sure no one more _useful_ is being wasted on the mission. Great. Thanks. It’s an honor to be of help, sir.

He eyes his squad for the mission (expedition? exploration? research?). Donut: confessed to being a complete rookie five minutes in and then went on for another ten minutes about how excited he was for this adventure-- he  means super serious mission that he’s taking super duper seriously!!! He’s starry eyed, young, inexperienced, and has clearly fallen for the military recruitment propaganda targeted at freshly graduated high schoolers that don’t know what to do with their lives now that no one’s telling them what to do any longer. Simmons doubts Donut’s ever fired off a shot in his life. Sarge: a decorated veteran that Simmons can’t help but respect and want to suck up to even though he’s sure it won’t get him anywhere, who swears and groans under his breath every time he has to sit up. Simmons swears he can hear his bones creaking from the other side of the plane (not that it’s a particularly large craft). He kinda wants to give him a cup of tea, call him grandpa, and try and gently encourage him to retire already. That would definitely get him punched in the face (and probably break Sarge’s brittle knuckles in the same go). Lopez: somehow got into the army without knowing a word of English. Has still not learned a word of English.

Simmons: a bitter, aching cripple desperate for a promotion he’s never going to get.

Yup, they’re practically the fucking A-team. Watch out, planet devoid of a civilization. Here comes the best humanity saw fit to offer.

* * *

“The pilot isn’t staying?” is the first thing he says after landing. After his superior officer told him to shut up, stop complaining, and do as he’s told, actually. Simmons follows orders, if nothing else. He shut up, stopped complaining, did as he was told, and here he is, standing around and wishing he had multiple hands so he could wring them, anxiously watching their only way out of here go away without them. Okay, so he may have been sulking just a touch. It’s justified. He’s been lied to. The army has not made a man of him so far, _dad._ If anything, it’s made him less of a man. About two limbs worth.

“There’d be nothing for her to do here for six months!” say the only reason he’s here cheerfully.

A scout party had been sent to the charmingly named planet W-W-413 when it had been first discovered about a year ago. They’d done a close enough inspection to determine that the air is breathable, the little water that isn’t seawater isn’t toxic, and the wildlife, while alien, is sparse and nothing special. No surprise aliens that may want to wage war on their entire species. It’d be a prime planet for colonization and spreading the human species (so they’d have more bodies to throw at the Sangheili), if it weren’t for the fact that the planet was, like, ninety percent water. Worthless. It’s an entire _worthless_ planet.

Doctor Grey, however, thought differently, apparently. She’d read the scout party’s reports, had somehow managed to see something that piqued her interest, and had immediately insisted that she be sent to W-W-413 for further research. Command had of course firmly rejected one of UNSC’s brightest mind’s request. They couldn’t send her to waste her time at some insignificant watery hole, she was a _resource,_ and a good one.

But Doctor Grey was a relentless genius and about a year later here she was, looking ridiculously triumphant for managing to get herself banished to what was quite possibly the wateriest backwater in existence for half a year.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got comms and a beacon in case of an emergency,” Grey reassured him before turning away from him to help Donut and Lopez with the unpacking. Simmons and Sarge were excluded from the chore thanks to a tactful order for them to secure the perimeter.

Simmons had heard rumors about certain superior officers who were particularly stubborn with their vetoes suffering psychological breakdowns for undisclosed and unconfirmed yet suspicious reasons that were not shared with the public.

He decided not to question out loud whether or not she had the authority to give them orders, snarkily reply that none of them will have anything to do for six months here either, point out that if they had to radio for help they’d probably all be dead by the time backup arrived thanks to how incredibly isolated the planet was anyways (another reason it was so useless, as if it needed more), or start whining about being coddled like an old man with a purposefully undiagnosed case of arthritis. He doubted the old man with a purposefully undiagnosed case of arthritis would appreciate the comparison between them, anyways.

Simmons didn’t always have to work so hard to suppress urges to be rude to his superiors. Being a teacher’s pet had always come naturally to him. Well, he had a touch more to be resentful about than usual now. He needed someone he could vent to, that was it. If only he had someone around willing to listen to him bitch for hours on end… Yeah, a person like that didn’t exist.

“A two mile perimeter check will have to be enough for now, just as a preliminary check. We’ll be more thorough when the rest of the men are freed up,” Sarge says with a decisive nod. Simmons stares. A perimeter check does not tend to be two miles long. Shit, how much walking is that for Simmons? About half an hour at a brisk walk, and he still hasn’t quite worked himself back up to being able to hold a brisk tempo. And shit, that’s just walking two miles in a straight line, Sarge probably means first walking two miles away from the camp, walking around in a circle around it until they’re back where they started, and then going back. That’s… way more than half an hour. Great. Simmons loves walking now. So much.

Sometimes, he just wants to rip his prosthetic leg off and _chuck_ it as far away as he can. He’d have to hop or crawl to go and get it back afterwards, though, so he bravely resists.

And he follows orders, if nothing else.

They march out. They landed on the biggest landmass the planet had, which is about as big as California, but it's nowhere as dry. W-W-413 is _wet._ Moist. Unpleasant. Simmons hated it before they even landed, and actually arriving to and experiencing the place hasn’t convinced he was wrong to do so in the least. His armor’s in good condition at least, so it’s waterproof, meaning as he squishes his way through the clinging mud of the ground that his socks aren’t wet. His socks aren’t wet. The one god damned plus so far of the entire day, month, possibly even year? He doesn’t want to think about it. He wants to stop thinking, period.

After an amount of time that Simmons doesn’t have the strength of spirit to check, Sarge halts. “This should be far enough. We’ll split up and meet back here, soldier.” One the one hand: this gives Simmons an opportunity to make an ass of himself and get lost, and he always takes an opportunity to make an ass of himself if it's available no matter how little he wants to. On the other: this cuts down on the time he has to spend on his legs, or rather, his leg and his stump that he’s attached some fancy plastic (or whatever the material is) to.

When in doubt, Simmons follows orders.

“Yes sir,” he says.

They split up.

The foliage on the planet is dark and unchecked, but not so present that he feels the need to unsheathe his knife and try to ineffectively hack his way through, instead just wading his way through the plants and letting the leaves brush against his armor, leaving behind trails of accumulated condensation to drip down him like raindrops on a window pane. The air here is unbearably humid, he can already tell, and he plans on wearing his helmet with its trusty filter and inner temperature regulation as often as  possible. And not just because he’s got a creepy blank glass eye that he doesn’t want anyone to see. Not _just._

He looks up at the sky as he walks, trying to gauge whether those gathering grey clouds are going to start pouring any time soon or just float there ominously until he gets back to shelter. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn the weather on W-W-413 was shit too, the planet was already shaping up to be his personal hell so far.

He’s still looking up at the sky as he walks straight off a cliff that appears out of nowhere like he’s a character in a goddamn Looneytunes cartoon.

Because that’s just typical, really. 


	2. One of them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The water was mellow and pleasant, and as he began to see the glow of the cliff’s moss in the distance, he couldn’t help but quicken his pace some with excitement. Food was fucking awesome.
> 
> But fighting hostile assholes for it was the worst. He abruptly pivoted, beating his tail against his momentum as he saw an unfamiliar and unexpected figure silhouetted against the soft light of the moss. He looked almost frantically around himself until he saw a rock big enough for him to use as cover and he dove for it. He landed with a soft thump against the ground, stirring up a small cloud of sand that settled quickly. He peeked over the edge of the rock cautiously, suspiciously.
> 
> Yeah, that definitely wasn’t anyone he knew (and were therefore potentially dangerous). He’d remember someone with such a distinctive and strange shape to their tail… Something niggled at the back of his mind about the shape of the mer, though. He squinted at them, trying to adjust for the glow of the moss and really see their features. It was…
> 
> It was…
> 
> One of  them.   
> 

Grif swam idly, unhurried, mostly just coasting on the current and the occasional movement of his tail. There was no rush. He’d eaten a few fish from the school that liked to swim near Doc’s coral wonderland, and he was now heading over to the cliffside with the glowy moss at its base to snatch a few fish from the school that liked to gather there. It was important not to take too many at once from any one school, or else he might permanently ruin them, thus ruining a good and consistent source of food as well. Not only would Grif hate himself for that, but there’d be more than one mer with a bone to pick with Grif if he pulled a stunt like that.

The water was mellow and pleasant, and as he began to see the glow of the cliff’s moss in the distance, he couldn’t help but quicken his pace some with excitement. Food was fucking awesome.

But fighting hostile assholes for it was the worst. He abruptly pivoted, beating his tail against his momentum as he saw an unfamiliar and unexpected figure silhouetted against the soft light of the moss. He looked almost frantically around himself until he saw a rock big enough for him to use as cover and he dove for it. He landed with a soft thump against the ground, stirring up a small cloud of sand that settled quickly. He peeked over the edge of the rock cautiously, suspiciously.

Yeah, that definitely wasn’t anyone he knew (and they were therefore potentially dangerous). He’d remember someone with such a distinctive and strange shape to their tail… Something niggled at the back of his mind about the shape of the mer, though. He squinted at them, trying to adjust for the glow of the moss and really see their features. It was…

It was…

One of _them._

Some time ago, someone new had arrived. _Something_ new. They’d worn impenetrable helmets and armor that covered them from head to fin, almost like warriors, except Grif hadn’t ever seen armor so extensive he couldn’t even see one single flash of skin (unless their skin had been that thick, matte black stuff between the edges of their stiff, colorful plates of armor.)

And that was another thing: _they didn’t have fins._ Their tail was split in the middle all the way up their pelvis, and they’d touched the floor of the ocean with one part of it for every inch of progress they made, dragged down by the incredible weight of their overkill armor, a constant cloud of disturbed sand surrounding their progress, moving slowly and implacably through the water, utterly silent.

It had been creepy as fuck, and Grif had spent every moment they were in the ocean glued to Kai’s side, having to constantly convince her not to swim up to the “interesting” new creatures and try and talk to them, sometimes even having to physically hold her back in the shadows of coral reefs and rocks where all of the other nearby mers were hiding with them, whispering amongst each other as they watched the creatures with incredible curiosity and/or fear. Some of them were holding weapons, sharp, straight, shiny, barbed things that made goosebumps rise on Grif’s arms. He didn’t know if they’d only pretended not to notice them or not, and he hadn’t been eager to find out.

Some of the more daring (stupid) mers who actually followed the damn things around said that they’d go out of the water and up to the land to presumably (hopefully, please let them need to) rest, before coming back into the water some hours later to pick up completely useless rocks and seaweed and bring back to their above water nest. It was just creepy enough for Grif not to entirely trust the rumor, but he couldn’t entirely disbelieve it either. The aliens were some of the creepiest sons of bitches he’d ever encountered, after all. Maybe they did sleep on land.

And then one day, they’d just disappeared, as suddenly and without any warning as they’d first arrived. They hadn’t been back in ages, and Grif had finally let out a sigh and let himself relax some months ago, let himself stop looking over his shoulder and behind every corner before he swam across a clearing without any nearby cover, afraid to run into them and their barbed spears.

But now they were back. He froze in fear behind his rock, staring intently at the thing to see if it had noticed him. It. As in singular. He’d only ever seen them travel in packs before, but this one was all alone, unless--

Grif tore his eyes away from the alien, looking frantically around himself to see if he’d been lured into some sort of trap. There were no other creatures around, not even the school of fish he’d come all the way here for. The creatures, unnatural and foreign as they were, had a way of scaring away the dumb wildlife away as effectively as they did the sentient one. Unsettled and tense, he looked back towards the lone creature.

The more he got over his shock and started thinking, the more things he saw that was odd about this one. It wasn’t holding a barbed spear, it didn’t have one of those packs on its back with tubes running to its helmet, and it wasn’t even touching the ground like all the others always had. But it was swiftly sinking towards it, like a tossed rock tumbling down from its apex. It was… _thrashing,_ more quick and, and _panicked_ than he’d ever seen one of the things be. One of its tails was significantly stiffer and thinner than the other one, not moving as much. It was a runt, Grif realized. The creature twisted in a way that let him see its other arm, or rather, its lack of one. An injured runt.

No wonder it was alone. It had probably been abandoned by its pack. Did they take its weapon before they left it? Its pack and tubes? What were those for, actually? Was it important?

The creature landed on the ocean floor, and he watched as it fumbled trying to balance on its tails like the creatures always did, try and push itself upwards before immediately failing, sinking back down. Did it need to go up? To the surface?

Did the creatures _need_ air? Was the rumor true, that they slept up there where mers couldn’t breathe for long? And did they do it not just because they could, because there wouldn’t be mers for them up there to guard against while the rest of the pack slept, but because they needed to breathe air? Did this one need air?

He watched its struggles grow weaker, and for some reason it was as alarming as stumbling onto it in the first place.

Grif felt… oh god, he actually felt _sorry_ for the thing. It was creepy and wrong and probably dangerous as fuck (or at least if it had been born stronger and still had a weapon), but it was weak and it had been left behind for it.

He watched it slump towards the ground, pulled down by the weight of its armor that its kind usually used to scuttle along on the ground like crabs. Could they even swim at all?

Grif realized it was going to die. Now, in front of him, weak and scared and alone. Unless he did something.

Without even thinking about it, he shot forward out from behind his rock and towards the creature just like how he’d told Kai so many times _not_ to do. Thank god she wasn’t here to witness his hypocrisy, he’d never hear the end of it. Thank god she wasn’t here to see it if it all went sideways somehow either. Or be in danger herself.

He hooked his arms under its armpits, lifting it up. It didn’t even react. Shit, was it already too late? He lashed his tail with all the force he could muster, going straight upwards. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He couldn’t believe he was wasting his time and energy on a creepy alien that would probably eat him if it had the chance--

He was so distracted he bumped the alien’s head against the cliff wall as he swam upwards, and he swore underneath his breath. Well, it had been wearing a helmet, anyways.

He continued swimming and the fast and steady movements of his tail only stuttered a bit when he noticed said helmet floating away out of the corner of his eye, apparently knocked off by yours truly. He looked down on the alien and-- wow. Wow.

It looked… shockingly normal. Like a mer’s face. No creepy mandibles or anything. His eyes were closed but his mouth wasn’t, bubbles of air escaping it. His hair was absurdly short, like an infants, but a pretty shade of red like a particular part of the coral reef that he liked to nap under. Freckles, male, shadows underneath his eyes like he hadn’t slept enough. Around his age. He looked stressed and tired and hurt. How the fuck had his pack been able to leave him behind?

Grif remembered himself and shot upwards, swimming frantically now. Now that he’s seen the alien’s face he doesn’t think he’ll be able to let him die without feeling like complete shit about it. 

(And it’s kind of cute, actually.)

Oh god no. Nope. Absolutely not. He tries to stop thinking about anything else but reaching the surface as quickly as possible. He can be fast as fuck when it’s needed, preferring to go slowly when he can because it’s safer to be underestimated and also because he just doesn’t really like expending energy if he doesn’t have to. But now he _has_ to. He breaks through so quickly it hurts, the air stinging against his skin for a moment before he adjusts. The alien makes terrible painful sounds, but he doesn’t open his eyes, so Grif just makes sure to keep his head above the water while he scans his surroundings for a piece of land he can dump the creature on. He has to swim some ways away from the cliff face, and maneuver a little awkwardly so he can dive back under the water for a few moments for relief while still keeping the creature up in the air, but he finds a modest beach a little way off. He swims towards it until he can feel sand scraping uncomfortably against his belly and tail, sure that he’ll be able to drag himself back into the water if he beaches himself. Hopefully before anything that might dwell on land attacks him (like maybe a pack of whatever the creature he just saved is, except far more conscious, armed, healthy, and hostile).

He pulls the creature up onto the sand, not entirely out of the water but enough so that he doesn’t think he’ll drift back out. He rolls him onto his back, thinks it over, and then rolls him onto his side experimentally. The alien makes more of the gross noises, and water gushes out of his mouth. Ewww.

Grif watches him for a moment, his chest rising and falling, the noises subsiding, and he… thinks he did it. He saved the alien. Great?

He should probably leave before the creature gets his wits about him and tries to feebly attack him or something. That’d just be an awkward pain. Yup, leaving now--

The alien makes an alarming, pained sound as he turns around and he hesitates, and that’s what fucks him over. He turns back to see two, wide alarmed eyes watching him, one blue-green like the surface of the ocean on a sunny day and the other blank as a polished pearl.

The alien makes a less painful noise, raspy and incredulous and utter nonsense to his ears, and he starts and realizes that he actually just got so distracted by looking into his eyes that he forgot he’d just been _spotted by one of the creatures oh fuck oh fuck_

Grif bolts. 


	3. starve to death on Bullshit Planet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The longer he lies here, the later he is to meeting back up with Sarge. He should radio in. Oh, right. He lost his helmet in the ocean, on his first day. That sure is going to make him look great and responsible and competent.
> 
> Also, what’s he supposed to say? ‘I walked off a cliff and was saved from drowning by…’
> 
> He doesn’t even know how to finish the sentence.

Simmons lies there on the ground on his back, staring up at the alien sun, slightly weaker than the one he’s used to, slightly paler. He barely has to squint to look directly at it. Bright spots dance in the dark behind his eyelids when he blinks, slowly, drying in the scant sunlight peeking through the heavy layer of threatening clouds.

The longer he lies here, the later he is to meeting back up with Sarge. He should radio in. Oh, right. He lost his helmet in the ocean, on his first day. That sure is going to make him look great and responsible and competent.

Also, what’s he supposed to say? ‘I walked off a cliff and was saved from drowning by…’

He doesn’t even know how to finish the sentence. He wonders if anyone would buy it if he said he saved himself. He wouldn’t.  Simmons wasn’t exactly a great swimmer even before he lost two of his limbs, and he hasn’t improved much since. He’s been more focused on his walking skills, to be honest.

And then Simmons thinks: how am I supposed to find my way back to camp?

That’s what finally breaks him out of the numb, surreal haze he’d managed to work himself into, chilling practical questions that he doesn’t have any answers to. His radio was in his helmet, his GPS, his maps-- _fuck._ Is, is he seriously going to die on what might just literally be the easiest mission UNSC could have possibly assigned him? After being the sole survivor of an explosion that had killed half a dozen ridiculously more capable men and women? After all of that suffering, after all of that work? If he’s going to starve to death on Bullshit Planet then WHY DIDN’T HE JUST DIE IN THE EXPLOSION? WHY DID HE _GO THROUGH ALL OF--_

He hears a snapping twig not too far away, and tenses up where he lies uselessly, trying to remember if he’d been given one of the waterproof guns, if it was still usable, and how he’d never been more than a decent shot at best back when he’d had two hands and he’d barely used his handgun and he hadn’t practiced since the incident _at all--_

Breathe in. Breathe out. There wasn’t supposed to be any dangerous fauna on W-W-413 according to the scouting party’s reports and--

There weren’t supposed to be humanoid aliens on W-W-413 according to the scouting party’s reports either, so what the fuck did they know? They’d probably put in approximately zero effort the entire time they’d been here, god knows the environment is already sapping Simmons’ will to stay alive. He should just lie there on the sand and let a space-boar it him if it wants to. Whatever. He doesn’t care.

A nearby bush rustles and Simmons begins frantically fumbling for the possibly-ruined handgun holstered at his hip, already feeling an increasingly panicked scream climbing up his throat.

“Private?” calls out a familiar gruff voice and Simmons slumps back into the sand, trying to suppress his relieved wheezing.

“Sarge,” he greets weakly as said man wades out of the tree line. “How did you find me?”

“There’s a tracker in your armor, idjit,” he says. “And why aren’t you wearing your helmet while out in enemy territory?”

“What enemy?” he asked, both suddenly curious and concerned. Did he miss a _very important_ mission briefing or something?

“NATURE,” Sarge barks.

“Oh,” Simmons says. He thinks about it for a moment, and then nods. “Good point, sir.” Nature was the worst.

“Yer armor’s pinging me like it thinks you’re dying, Private.” Simmons respects and wants to someday emulate the way Sarge is managing to telegraph that he’s glaring at Simmons right now while wearing full armor.

“Uh, that’s probably because I lose my helmet in the ocean, sir.” And because the rest of his armor was trying to figure out what the hell was happening to Simmons when he’d been working himself up into a frenzy, wobbling on the very edge of a panic attack. Probably. Sarge doesn’t need to hear about that part, though.

“What, you fancied you’d go fer a swim?” he asks critically, and Simmons feels simultaneously indignant, incredulous, and embarrassed as fuck.

“No, sir! I…” didn’t watch where he was going and walked off a cliff. _Fuck_ that sounded dumb. Because it _was._ “Dropped it,” he finished weakly, belatedly. “While I was trying to figure out, uh, how one of the functions worked. So I jumped into the water to try and get it back but… the waves took it………. Sorry.”

Simmons really wasn’t sure whether or not the lie sounded as bad as the truth would. Well, at least the lie didn’t let on that he’d almost managed to get himself killed without an enemy in sight, or in fact an enemy on the entire planet.

Sarge is quiet for a long moment, and Simmons wonders if the moisture he feels on his forehead is lingering ocean water or sweat.

“... Right,” Sarge finally says in a way that makes Simmons doubt he believed him, and then reaches out a hand. Simmons stares at it for a moment in incomprehension before he grasps it. He really is tired. Also, almost drowning gives you one hell of a headache, apparently. Sarge hoists him up with a grunt, and Simmons guiltily tries his best not to let Sarge take all of his weight. “Let’s get back to base, son. The perimeter will still be there tomorrow.”

_Son_ kicks up a nest of butterflies in the pit of his stomach in a really pathetic sort of way, a way that he should’ve outgrown a long time ago. He wishes his face wasn’t uncovered. He hopes Sarge isn’t still looking at him.

They march back to camp.

Simmons tries to keep his thoughts on Sarge’s back, on _one two one two,_ but walking, while not pleasant, is still thoughtless relatively easy work, and his mind strays.

To the creature.

Because it had to be a creature, right? It couldn’t be human, right? How would a human even have gotten here? The scout mission reports didn’t say anything about any missing crew members when they got back, everyone was accounted for. A stowaway, perhaps? That then proceeded to somehow survive off of the resources available on the not-exactly-generous environment of W-W-413? For over a year? And also they didn’t wear a shirt and they swam in the ocean and they had hair so long it floated like an entire bottle’s worth of ink poured into water, an astoundingly large, black cloud, and it had only been for a moment but he swore to god his eyes had _glowed_ golden orange, like a setting sunset, and he’d _saved Simmons,_ at least he thinks so--

_BANG_

Simmons let out a strangled scream, his ears ringing, hand flying for the rifle that wasn’t there any longer, he was using a handgun now, and he was fumbling it anyways he didn’t have his left hand any longer _you goddamn idiot--_

Sarge shot his shotgun again.

“SIR,” Simmons shouted, partly because his ears were ringing and partly because he was fucking terrified. “WHAT’S WRONG!?”

“What’s wrong,” BANG, “is all of these,” BANG, “gosh damned plants,” BANG, “in my way!”

Simmons stared blankly at Sarge’s back for a moment as he shot at the leaves in front of him before another BANG broke him out of it. “Sir, you use machetes for that!”

“Left my machete at home,” Sarge said.

“But what about conserving ammo?” he asked, concerned.

“I brought extra in my personal luggage.”

“... Is that allowed?”

“Yes. Because I said so. I outrank you, Private.”

“Oh, okay.” There were ranks higher than sergeant in the army, but there weren’t any of those currently on W-W-413, so Sarge’s word _was_ law, he supposed. Technically. If you squinted and tilted your head a little. And lied to yourself.

Simmons was just gonna go ahead and do that. It made things simpler, and it was one of his main skills, after all.

* * *

Luckily, they’d all been ordered to bring a spare set of armor, so Simmons still has one helmet left.

“Make this one last a little longer now,” Grey says with a playful, teasing smile as she hands it over to him, and he tries not to take it as a rebuke. It isn’t meant as one. He thinks. Oh god, what if it is? Is she being subtle? Simmons has a hard enough time properly reading people even when they aren’t intentionally making things harder for him.

“I, uh, I will, Dr. Grey,” he says earnestly, furiously debating with himself whether or not holding eye contact was a good idea or not. It might help him seem more sincere (which he _was),_ but he also really didn't want to look at anything besides his feet at the moment, possibly ever again, even. (Foot. Whatever.)

“I just went ahead and synched the helmet up with your armor so that it’ll stop trying to tell everyone that your decapitated head has sunk to the bottom of the ocean!” He blinks the vivid visual image that calls forth away. “You know, that’s a pretty major design flaw,” she goes on. “When I informed R&D of the bug when they first released the diagnostics feature I thought they’d follow my helpfully included blueprints and fix it, but nope! They just made a rule so soldiers aren’t allowed to take off any of their armor without following certain protocol to keep the system from freaking out. It’s _much_ more ineffecient and bothersome, but it saves money, apparently.”

He could’ve told her from the start that they’d do that. The military doesn’t care about what its canon fodder has to go through, so long as they get to save another dollar. That’s why taste is the lowest priority when designing MRE’s, that’s why they purchase weapons from the cheapest company offering so that their guns jam at the worst moments but hey, who’s gonna be alive to tell anyways, that’s why Simmons’ prosthetic leg chafes his stump raw and already creaks ominously, like the material’s going to snap and dump him on the ground at any moment, like he’s been using it for years and years.

“Right,” he says after yet another long weird pause, he seriously has to stop making those, he can’t just keep getting distracted every time someone says something that somehow reminds him how much he hates his life, because nowadays that covers everything under the goddamn sun and fuck, great, perfect, fantastic, he’s doing it again _right now._ She must think he’s so weird. Everyone already knows that he’s weird. He can’t wait to spend the next six months alone with only these four people (golden, glowing, wide eyes staring at him with shock) who are already onto him.

“Thanks,” he says. And that’s what finally sets off a hellish coughing fit that’s been sitting in the bottom of his chest for hours now, ever since he came to on that beach, squatting with malevolent anticipation, itchy and salty and uncomfortable, just waiting to spring out when he’s in front of someone. In front of the only woman on the planet, in fact.

She strokes his back, pats him firmly, and he thinks it might have actually somehow shortened the fit a bit. He thought that was just nonsense people did on TV.

He blinks the tears out of his eyes, breath raspy, and Grey gives him a shrewd look. “So, Sarge says you swam after your helmet?”

“Y--yes,” he said, regretting his cover story more and more each time it was brought up, breaking away from the eye contact he’d finally been able to bring himself to make. He can’t really think of a different more believable lie he could’ve told instead, though. And why is he lying in the first place? About all of it? Shouldn’t Grey of all people know about the extraterrestrial life forms on the planet she’s here to research? He should tell her the truth-- His mind recoils instantly from the idea. Why? Maybe he’s just stupid. "I dropped it into the ocean and the waves carried it off." 

“Hmm,” she says, and what the fuck is that supposed to even mean? He has no idea. “It seems you inhaled more than just a bit of water.”

“I’m not a great swimmer.” _For obvious reasons._

“But you managed to swim back to shore anyways,” she said, and it wasn’t a question, but it made Simmons feel fidgety and transparent anyways, like she saw right through him.

_She’s onto you,_ a snarky voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like his mother said sarcastically. _She knows you accidentally walked off of a cliff like the Roadrunner and got saved by a beautiful alien._

Okay, point taken. No one would jump to _that_ conclusion. (And hang on, _beautiful?)_

“Yes,” Simmons says, because the less he talks, the less rope he gives himself to hang himself with. It’s a lesson he’s learned again and again throughout his life, and he just can’t wait until he inevitably forgets and has to relearn it the hard way again.

She gives him a slow once over, and it feels clinical and _detailed,_ like being surveyed by… well, by the laser sharp focus of one of the most brilliant minds in the galaxy. Simmons doesn’t like it, having that sort of mind entirely focused on just _him,_ even for just a moment.

It isn’t a relief when she turns away from him, tossing a “supper at seven!” over her shoulder. It just feels like she’s already solved him.

“I don’t really have an appetite,” he says, too weary to raise his voice so that her receding form can hear him. He’s coughed his throat raw, and he doubts her mind’s anywhere near him any longer anyways.

He decides to turn in early instead, grabbing a granola bar and avoiding everyone else as best he can on his way to his tent.

He realizes only once the conversation is over that he hadn’t put his helmet back on once he got it, that Grey had been able to his expressions for the entire conversation. He’s so tired he only feels a wave of exhausted exasperation of himself wash over him instead of panic or embarrassment.

He falls into a heavy sleep, and dreams about impossible eyes and imossible hair and people being where it should be impossible for them to be.


	4. a he, an it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows he’s almost there when the kelp starts to crop up. Long strands of it, appearing together closer and in greater quantity the further he swims. If he were stupid enough to swim through it instead of just grazing over it, then he knows he could end up tangled in those things, trapped indefinitely.
> 
> But he isn’t that stupid, and besides, Locus would find him eventually.

Grif swims blindly away from the land mass he’d dumped the creature on until he’s more hungry than scared. It doesn’t take long. He drifts slowly to a stop, coasting on his initial panicked flight, looking around himself. Geez, he really _had_ worked himself up into a panic; he’s swimmed almost all the way to Locus’ cave without even noticing it.

Well, at least something good has come of the day. He changes his course slightly, swimming slower but with more purpose now, towards a direction that isn’t just “away”.

He knows he’s almost there when the kelp starts to crop up. Long strands of it, appearing together closer and in greater quantity the further he swims. If he were stupid enough to swim through it instead of just grazing over it, then he knows he could end up tangled in those things, trapped indefinitely.

But he isn’t that stupid, and besides, Locus would find him eventually. 

He reaches out a hand and grabs a strand of kelp, not slowing down, and tugs hard. After swimming in place for a short moment, his arms flexing, straining, he manages it, the rope of kelp snapping in two somewhere in the middle. A long, long half of kelp trails after him as he swims on. Great! Something he can snack on throughout the day. He’s seriously worked himself up into an appetite. Locus won’t mind Grif snacking on his kelp farm, he’s got a standing invitation to take as much as he wants whenever. Not even Grif’s unchecked appetite could put a dent in it, and Locus is a carnivorous shark mer besides.

Eventually, he finally arrives at a place in the middle of the field of kelp where it just suddenly stops, making a clearing surrounded by a forest of seaweed. In the middle of that circle is a small cave, and a rock. Grif spies Locus and grins, calling out, “Hey!” because it is not a good fucking idea to sneak up on Locus, especially when he’s sharpening his knives.

Locus looks up and smiles slightly, puts down his knife. Grif approaches him and finds a spot on Locus’ rock that isn’t covered in knives or various bits of old but well cared for warrior armor to land on. He sighs, relieved as he sinks down and stretches, languid. He had _not_ planned to swim that much today when he got up this morning.

“Grif,” Locus greets him as he takes a bite of his technically not stolen kelp. “I wasn’t expecting you for another few days.” Grif visited regularly, but certainly not daily. Too long of a trip for it.

“Well, this wasn’t exactly planned,” he explained through his mouthful, and then hesitated. He definitely shouldn’t talk about the stupid shit he did to Kai, she got up to enough of her own stupid shit as it was without any encouragement from him. But, well. Locus was safe, right? The dude knew more about him that maybe anyone in the world. Mostly because when they’d first met Grif had been concussed and thus talkative and impulsive as hell, but that was besides the point. Locus had taken care of him, even though he’d been an annoying little shit at the time (more so than usual, at least). Locus was a way bigger softie than the rumors gave him credit for; Grif assumed it was due to a combination of shark mer stereotypes, Locus’ resting bitch face, deadpan monotone, awkward as fuck social graces, and also, admittedly, that he had actually been kinda dangerously violent back in the day, apparently. But hey, war messed with people in different ways, and he was clearly cool _now._ Wasn’t that what mattered the most?

Locus hummed, pulling Grif out of his thoughts. He was good at that. Grif relaxed and swallowed his seaweed. Yeah, of course he could trust Locus.

“Okay, so, don’t tell Kai about this,” he said.

“Never a good start,” Locus replied, but he nodded anyways.

“I saw one of the creatures again,” he said, and Locus’ eyes widened, his tail lashing once with distress. As wary as everyone was of the mysterious creatures, Locus, the endearing paranoid fuck, was even more so. He picked up his knife to start sharpening it again as Grif talked, clearly nervous now.

“I thought we’d seen the last of them,” Locus said.

“Apparently not.” Grif shrugged. “Maybe they’ve got, like, seasons? I dunno. Anyways, I saw one of the creatures, alone. One of his tails or whatever were all messed up, and he had lost one of his arms. He was flailing around, trying to get to the surface but he clearly couldn’t do it all, so…”

_“Grif,”_ Locus said, sounding distinctly pained, like he already thought he knew where this was going and didn’t like it one bit.

“Well, it’s not like he was armed! And he was pretty much passed out when I got to him, actually.”

“So it didn’t see you?”

“Welllllll…”

_“Grif.”_

“He woke up a bit when I got him to the surface, and uh, caught a glimpse of me, maybe.” More like made solid eye contact with him for several frozen second but haha, let’s maybe downplay that part just a bit.

Locus put down his knife so he could rub tiredly at his face and Grif grinned at him apologetically.

“Where did this happen?”

“You know that cliff with the glowy moss?”

Locus pushed himself up off of the rock, and Grif blinked at him, confused.

“Where are you going?”

“Where do you think?”

Grif groaned. “But I was _just there._ How much swimming can you expect a guy to do in one day?”

“You don’t need to come,” Locus said, and then started putting on his armor.

“Uh,” Grif said, staring. He hadn’t seen Locus in his armor for some time.

Locus sheathed his knives, bringing them, and that decided it for Grif. Locus had said that he didn’t want to kill anyone again, but. But Grif hadn’t thought of the creature as a he until he’d been able to see his face, had called him an it in his head just like Locus just did in their conversation. Grif might still be wary of the creatures, but he at least thought of them as people now. Locus did not. Locus might do something he would later regret.

And the idea of that runt getting his throat slit made Grif feel way too uneasy, vividly nauseous in a way that was probably a bit too much for someone he’d never spoken to and probably never would. Maybe he felt responsible for him since he’d saved him, kinda?

“Ugh, whatever,” he said, and pushed himself up. He brought his kelp, though.

* * *

They both cautiously surfaced hours later. The sun was setting, and Grif had eaten all of his kelp. They just went up enough for their eyes to be above water, looking at the small beach where Grif had dumped the creature. He was relieved to see that he was gone. A part of him in the back of his mind had been fearing that he’d be coming back to a corpse, or maybe just a runt that had been unable to move since Grif left him, unable to go and get himself food or go to shelter, unable to survive alone without his pack. But it seemed that he’d managed enough to leave the place on his own. Maybe he’d been able to find food, and shelter. Maybe he was going to be just fine. Yeah. Yeah, hopefully.

Locus stayed staring at the beach long enough for the strange sensation of the top of his head _drying_ to start for Grif, before he nodded and they both dived back down.

“Can you show me where you first found him as well?”

Well, they might as well as long as they were already there.

Grif noted with some happiness that the school of fish that frequented the cliff face were back now that the creature was gone, and he went and snagged himself a fish for himself and one for Locus while the shark mer in question poked around the rocks on the ocean floor, as if he’d actually find something.

“I found something,” Locus said when Grif swam over to him to give him his fish.

“What?” Grif asked, and it was more of a surprised _what the fuck_ than _what did you find_ sort of _what,_ but Locus still held up what he’d found.

“Oh my god,” he said. “His helmet! That’s right, I accidentally knocked it off of him on the way up. Dude, it was so weird, they look, like, _super normal_ under there.”

“Hmm,” Locus said distractedly while turning the helmet around in his hands. He unsheathed one of his knives and then, with an abrupt, efficient, economical series of movements stabbed his knife through the visor to the hilt. Grif stiffened, surprised, eyes wide and heart suddenly beating quickly. He imagined Locus stabbing through the visor so easily while the creature was still wearing it and shuddered. Okay, he could maybe get why people were still scared of Locus, even if he wasn’t like that any longer.

Locus retrieved his knife, shoulders relaxed now, apparently satisfied with the knowledge that he could kill one of the creatures while they were fully armored if he had to. He tossed the helmet down onto the ocean floor without looking at it, used and dismissed.

“Alright,” he said. “I think I’ve seen enough. Thank you for showing me, Grif. And stay away from those things from now on.”

“Dude, you don’t have to tell me that twice. Today was just a product of temporary insanity, if you ask me.”

Locus nodded, gave him his small smile which he returned, and left.

Grif turned to leave as well, but then looked down at the helmet on the ground thoughtfully. He picked it up and turned it around in his hands like Locus had done only moments ago. It was made of thick, sturdy material he couldn’t identify, and the visor was just barely see through now that he was looking at it intently. It was a pale yellow material, and small cracks spider webbed out of the small slit Locus had made in it, like a cracked seashell.

He noted that while it looked like it might be a bit of snug fit, he could probably put the helmet on. So, experimentally, just because he was curious about how much visibility the creatures had (it might be useful info for continued avoidance in the future, now that it seemed that they were back), he put it on.

Grif heard voices.


	5. Fascinating things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone at the camp’s acting weird.

Everyone at the camp’s acting weird. They were all weird people to start off, of course. Sarge seems crazier than a fox as in he’s borderline a rabid animal (which Simmons  _ respects),  _ Donut’s got Mode magazines mixed in with his weapon manuals, Lopez has somehow managed to communicate solely with body language and flat stares that he longs for all of their deaths, and Grey never seems to turn off the light in her tent, randomly breaking out into maniacal, triumphant, ominous laughter long past three in the morning. But that just means that when they act weird they act fucking _ weird,  _ apparently. 

Donut keeps offering to paint his nails and do his hair and effusively complimenting him on his facial bone structure. It’s not like Simmons has a deep and intimate knowledge of Donut’s personality considering that he met him, like, less than a week ago, but he doesn’t do that nowhere as often for anyone else on the squad. He’d almost assume that he was being _ flirted _ with for the first time in his life if it weren’t for the fact that Donut seems to know some broken Spanish, which means that Lopez is an option, and if there’s ever an alternative then Simmons just doesn’t get chosen. It’s as simple as that. Even if the alternative in question muttered to himself with quietly intense anger for four straight hours yesterday. 

And speaking of Lopez, he doesn’t glare at him as much as he does at the others. Okay, no, he does, but not with as much venom. Which is strange since Simmons is the only one who’s wronged Lopez so far. (He spilled his piping hot coffee all over him that morning. Lopez had just grinded his teeth together and reacted in no other outwardly way. Simmons had apologized profusely and obsessed over that fuck up for the rest of the day. It’d probably reappear to come back and haunt him in random flashes for the rest of his life, as all of his many fuck ups did.) 

Grey was cheery and nice and vaguely threatening as a baseline, but she seemed to make an extra effort to pretend to be interested in him a touch more than with the others. Sure, she seemed to be eager to psychoanalyze any of them at a moment's notice if they accidentally hinted at so much as an iota of willingness to answer deeply personal and invasive questions, but she asked him how he was _ doing.  _ She asked him how he slept, how he was feeling, was he experiencing any aches or pains? The obviously correct answer to all of those questions, even if it wasn’t strictly at all true, was  _ fine.  _

And Sarge, while gruff and shouty and seemingly always ready for a fist fight to the death at the drop of a hat, seemed to… enjoy his presence? No, that had never happened before. It was probably because he enjoyed what a yes-man Simmons was. Anyways, Sarge went out of his way to make sure that Simmons didn’t sit alone during mealtime, picking up and plunking his seat down next to him if he just so happened to decide (every single time) to sit somewhere no one else was. He always asked (ordered) Simmons to come and assist him with his repairs and tinkerings and checkups and constructions of the various machines around the camp. He’d thought that had been Lopez’s job, but it was just as often Simmons that ended up sitting close by as Sarge rambled on about what was wrong with the machine or pass me that wrench Private or something that had absolutely nothing to do with their current work at all. Sarge told a lot of war stories, and they were all disjointed and nonlinear and sometimes made no sense at all, like Sarge was telling him about the nightmare of the events instead of the events themselves. A war story from Sarge was always bound to be disturbing and surreal. 

They all seemed to be going out of their way to be… _ nice _ to him, specifically. But that was ridiculous and weird and made no sense at all.  _ Why? _ Simmons was obnoxious and whiny and the textbook definition of someone you didn’t want to be nice to. He was like that government official in  _ Ghostbusters;  _ unlikable and uncontrollably smug, an obstacle to be overcome, someone fun to hate that would get their comeuppance after the climax of the movie and before the credits. People met Simmons and immediately wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine, whatever that was. He practically had a signed taped to his back saying ‘GIVE ME MY IRONIC PUNISHMENT PLEASE’ in all caps. 

… He hopes this isn’t pity. He can’t see any other possible reason for it, though. 

Another thing Sarge is doing is not letting him go out on patrols alone any longer. He makes it a rule for everyone, growling something about never letting your guard down and safety in numbers, but he knows that it’s because of him. 

He did admittedly fuck up pretty badly on his first one, but Simmons desperately wants to go back to that beach he woke up on. The longer ago it was that he woke up to those glowing orange eyes staring at him, the more it seems like he just made the whole thing up. Almost drowning fucks your brain up. He’d probably just been luckily washed up by the waves, a weird current, whatever. What makes more sense, after all? A humanoid alien species that somehow avoided scout detection on some random bullshit planet saving him? Or that his brain had gone too long without oxygen and he hallucinated a little? It hadn’t even been for that long, he’d seen the alien for a  _ moment  _ and then he’d dived into the water, disappearing without a trace, not resurfacing even though Simmons stared intently at the water for twenty minutes after he’d gone away, mind spiraling downwards, internally screaming about what he’d just seen. 

About what he’d  _ thought _ he’d just seen. 

He’s just finally going crazy on top of being mangled. Oh god, he hopes not. His brain’s basically the last thing he’s got going for him, even if it does have a tendency to panic and freeze up whenever he’s under pressure, like that old laptop he had did whenever he had too many tabs open. It’s not a good brain but it’s  _ his _ brain. 

“Why  _ are _ you interested in this planet?” he asks one day out of the blue, thinking about orange eyes and long, long hair. 

“The reports were  _ fascinating,”  _ Grey answers him promptly, idly sketching what seems to be a human without any skin and see through flesh. 

“No they weren’t,” Simmons immediately contradicts her, and this is why he doesn’t have any friends. 

“That’s because the people writing the reports didn’t know what part of what they were reporting  _ was  _ fascinating. Wait, did you read the reports?” 

Simmons flushes and redirects his gaze to the campfire. It isn’t dark yet, but it’s always damp here. It depends on the day whether it’s an unbearably hot and humid sort of dampness, or a chilly and foggy sort. Today is cold enough for Simmons to keep all of his armor on, not that he likes to take it off if he doesn’t need to nowadays, though. But Grey only packed coffee and blood stained lab coats, and Sarge seems to get an inappropriate amount of satisfaction out of cutting down trees and imagining that they’re Sangheili, so. Camp fire it is. 

“I know we didn’t have to,” he defended himself, and immediately wonders if it would’ve been better if he’d acted like he thought he did have to. Which one was better as being viewed as: an inobservant idiot that didn’t pay attention or a stick-up-the-ass nerd that couldn’t let anything lie? “But I’m going to live here for the next six months, so I think I was justified in wanting to know what sort of place I was arriving to.” 

“Well then, I’m afraid the reports may have given you a bit of a wrong idea of what you were coming to!” 

W-W-413 was exactly as described, actually. Moist, quiet, and depressing. But then he thought about glowing eyes again and he frowned thoughtfully at the fire. How much did Grey suspect? How much did she know? 

“What  _ was _ so fascinating about the reports, Dr. Grey?” 

“Hints,” she said. “Small inconsistencies and inexplicable facts that implied…” She smiled a slow, delighted, almost manic grin.  _ “Fascinating _ things.” 

Simmons was prevented from further questioning thanks to a sound that war had trained him to recognize: a pelican flying high overhead. He looked up only to see it flying away from them. 

“What the hell?” he asked. 

Grey tsked. “Couldn’t even be bothered to stop and land for the delivery. Kids these days.” 

“We’re getting deliveries?” Indeed, he thought he could make out a dot in the sky slowly growing larger, nearer. A box attached to a parachute. “Then why did we pack so much food?” 

“Well, this wasn’t planned at the outset, exactly,” she explained with a coy smile. “I just realized that I hadn’t packed everything I would need.” 

The box landed less than fifty feet away from their site, but Grey still tutted about accuracy and how she could’ve done better. He somehow didn’t doubt her. 

“I can--” he said, but she picked it up on her own with a suppressed grunt before he could even get the  _ help _ out. He clearly wasn’t needed. And really, _ could  _ he help? He hadn’t lifted anything too heavy yet. He wondered how much more weight than just himself his prosthetic leg could take. 

He suddenly desperately wanted to know what his limits were while at the same time not wanting to find out. 

“Me and these lovely ladies,” she hoisted the box a little further up from where it had been slipping (Grey was  _ tiny) _ as emphasis, “are going to have an absolutely wonderful evening together. See you tomorrow!” 

“It’s not even that late,” he said. 

“I’ve got some food squirreled away in my tent,” she said with barely hidden excitement, and then left without another word. 

Simmons sat back down in his flimsy chair to stare into the camp fire again. 

And that’s when he realized he’d been left alone for the first time since he’d walked off that cliff. Since he lied on that beach. In that who knew how long gap between the alien leaving him and Sarge finding him. If the alien  _ was _ real. 

Simmons once had a squadmate that would constantly pull the dumbest stunts, claiming that asking for forgiveness was better than asking for permission, even though that was obviously wrong. One got you in much more trouble with superiors than the other. And that squadmate was dead now, so. But. 

He  _ had _ to find out. 

He left behind a note saying he was going out for a walk, like it was just a casual thing he didn’t know wasn’t allowed, like he couldn’t click onto the comms right now and just tell Sarge right now what he was doing (and then promptly be told to sit his ass back down and wait for the rest of the squad to get back from their patrol if he wanted to take a walk so damn much). He thought about it for a moment and then did turn his comms on. Just so he’d know when they realized and started looking for him. He could maybe get away with “accidentally” breaking his comms system, but he felt like that was taking it a step too far. He was going to be here for half a year. He’d get other chances. Or so he hoped, anyways. 

He walked a little faster than what was comfortable for him, like he did when he was walking with other people, because he was slow now. The beach was some ways off and he wasn’t sure when the guys would be back. They didn’t seem to talking much at the moment, but one of them would make the occasional comment, Donut complaining about the planet’s weather messing with his hair, or Sarge muttering threats at the plants under his breath, or Lopez muttering what sounded an awful lot like threats just in general. 

He let himself think about what he thought he might just find as he walked, and came up with nothing. It was just a beach. Sure, it had significance in his mind, maybe, but nothing beyond that. He’d seen nothing interesting on it when the alien left, and there’d be nothing there when he came back, probably. The alien was gone. The alien had never been real. 

Nothing interesting was ever going to happen to Simmons. Explosions didn’t count; they were grueling, he’d discovered, or at least the aftermath of them were, and grueling wasn’t exciting. It was an exhausting grind that made him want to tear his hair out and scream. 

But he kept walking, like an idiot, like a pathetic loser who couldn’t stop himself from hoping against all logic. 

He arrived. He looked. 

Nothing was there. Just as predicted. 

He closed his eyes, made sure to switch over to a private channel just with his own armor where no one on his squad could hear him, took a deep breath through his nose, and  _ screamed.  _

Someone in his armor screamed back, startled and scared. 


	6. didn’t imagine that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif, against all better judgement and everything he just promised himself, grabs the helmet on his way out when he leaves for home.

OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT

Okay, this time Grif has seriously _fucked up._

Some days ago, he’d put on the helmet and heard voices. He’d promptly ripped it off of his head, swam a hundred yards away, hidden behind a rock, and stared at the far off dot of the helmet in trepidation until he started to feel silly and bored and swam slowly, warily back to it. He’d put the helmet back on and there was silence. He waited for a long moment, wondering if he’d just imagined it like how he used to get audible hallucinations sometimes back when he’d hit his head--

And then--

 _Ksshhhhrst._ A rough, unfamiliar crackling noise right in his ear, and then a gruff, old, male voice, oddly accented, rough and barking: “Private, respond!”

He starts, sharply inhales. It seems to rile the voice up even more. (It _heard_ him.)

“Private, is that you!? Answer me!”

The words mean nothing to him, pure nonsense like when the alien babbled at him hours ago.

“It is downright insubordinate to ignore your superior officer like this Private Simmons--”

Grif takes the helmet off because being yelled at is never pleasant. The voice thankfully stops as soon as he takes it off. So it really is just a property of the helmet and not his unreliable head. Thank god.

Wait.

So does this mean the creatures can _do magic?_

Oh fuck that’s terrifying to think about. He really, _really_ hopes the creatures don’t eat mers. He tries to remember back to when he saved the runt, if he had had the sharp teeth of a carnivore like Locus and Doc or the flat teeth of an omnivore like Kai and Grif.

He hadn’t really been smiling at the time.

His tail twitches with the swiftly-becoming-familiar flare of worry that briefly washes over him as his thoughts return to the runt, thoughts like _how is he doing_ and _has he been attacked by a predator_ being asked and going worryingly unanswered in his head. Ugh, saving him was supposed to get him out of his thoughts, not win him a permanent place there. Kai’s more than enough worry for him, thanks.

He has no way of assuaging his worries about the runt, so he shouldn’t have them in the first place. He’ll start working on that right away, the runt won’t even come up in his thoughts inside of a week, he’s sure.

It’s time to go home and forget all about this.

Grif, against all better judgement and everything he just promised himself, grabs the helmet on his way out when he leaves for home.

* * *

Grif wonders if the place he lives in counts as a cave. He’s certainly had way too many semantic arguments about it with people who don’t seem to give a damn. It’s a hole in the wall of a huge, just, like, gigantic, rock. Sort of a nook, really. An alcove, a crevice, his den. It’s not too large, but the view’s great, looking out at the local coral reef, and he’s filled the alcove with himself. Stockpiled food, fishbones he hasn’t gotten around to sweeping out yet and probably won’t for a long time, various rocks and shells Kai’s given him that she claims are pretty and shiny but which just look kinda drab to him, but he keeps them anyways, in their own pile away from the rest of the detritus he’s created.

Kai doesn’t live with him anymore, and that’s fine. She’s an adult, and she’s loud and noisy, and she’s almost always horny but you can’t have a threesome if your big brother’s right there snoozing in the corner, now can you? It makes sense. It’s normal for kids to move out when they grow up. He doesn’t miss her at all.

He wonders if visiting her for the third time in as many days will make him seem too clingy and smothering, or if he should give it a rest and leave her alone for a few days.

He looks around the small space for a moment, hesitates, and sets the helmet carefully down on top of the little pile of Kai’s gifts. He looks at it. He gets himself a snack, and he looks at it. He lies down for a nap, and he looks at it. He doesn’t sleep, and he continues looking at it.

He grumbles, frustrated by himself, and gets up and puts the helmet on. It’s quiet right now, so he just lies back down in his nest and closes his eyes, trying to sleep again, hoping that putting it on might make him stop thinking about it. He shouldn’t have brought it with him. He should’ve just left it, asked Locus to completely destroy it.

It’s not that comfortable, trying to sleep with the helmet on, but he’s managed in worse conditions as well. He’s almost slipping away when he hears a new, bright voice say, “Grey say’s it’s dinnertime!”

His eyes fly open and he looks around his alcove before he realizes it's the helmet, of course. His heartbeat slowly settles back down to a more relaxed pace.

And then that gruff, older voice again, “Roger that! Hut, hut, Lopez!”

A flat voice who speaks nonsense that sounds like a different sort of nonsense from the others, _“I’m coming, old man.”_

“Private Simmons, hop to it!”

A silence. A frustrated growl.

“That boy needs to learn how to answer his radio! Private Donut, go fetch him!”

_“I saw him turn in early.”_

“Yes sir!”

“I admire your dedication, Private Lopez, but Private Donut can take care of this.”

_“I wasn’t volunteering.”_

He closes his eyes, letting the meaningless noise wash over him, just registering that there’s people talking instead of trying to listen to the individual sounds. Like having people at home again. It’s far too comforting for the absurd situation it actually is: listening to alien creatures communicate in a foreign language through magic helmets.

“Simmons? Simmons, it’s dinner-- aww.”

“Private Donut, you forgot to turn your comms off.”

“He’s already asleep, sir! But eating is important-- I’ll wake him up. Simmons, get up, I made, well, I made MRE’s, but--”

And then, faintly, as if heard from across a clearing, “Whazzat?”

Grif freezes, tenses up. No way.

“Wait, Private,” the older voice says, sounding suddenly more reserved than before. “Let the boy sleep. He’s had a long day of it.”

“But--”

“He can eat later.”

“Yes sir. Sorry Simmons, you can go back to sleep.”

“Orange…”

That _voice_ again. He knows it. He recognizes it. That frozen moment from the beach is seared into his mind for possibly ever. It’s the runt. He’s talking, sounding groggy and tired but _alive,_ and surrounded by other creatures that don’t sound _too_ hostile. The flat and the old one do admittedly sound pretty angry, but the young one sounds bright and friendly.

“I don’t think we have oranges, sorry. Good night!”

Grif stares blankly at a pile of fishbones he polished off weeks ago. He has the runt’s magical helmet. He has to way to answer the worried questions his mind keeps asking him.

He just has to learn the language first.

* * *

Grif only takes the helmet off to eat for the next three days and nights. He decides not to visit Kai again. She needs her space, breathing room to become an adult on her own without his constant hovering. He also decides not to visit Locus. He just visited him yesterday, after all, ahead of schedule. He isn’t avoiding people. He isn’t obsessing.

He just has to focus very hard, is all. The language the creatures speak, he’s never heard anything like it before. Doc will randomly and angrily start arguing with himself in Deep Speak in front of him sometimes (arguing back in the language Grif understands, showing him one half of a very disturbing conversation that just grows more disturbing thanks to the fact that he has no idea what the “other party” is saying. Grif doesn’t like it when Kai spends time with Doc, no matter how much he amuses her.), and Locus is fluent in the war language soldiers use, but Grif’s never been interested in learning that. It’s obviously only used to alienate soldiers from civilians and make them more dependent on their fellow warriors. Kai met a nomadic mer pod once, and they knew all sorts of tongues. They taught her all of the swear words they could, which she happily repeated to him. He’s just glad that it hadn’t occurred to her to swim away with them when she had the chance.

But this sounds nothing like any of that. There’s not as many vowels, the words are shorter and less drawn out, curt and staccato in comparison to what he’s got. He listens, and he listens, and he listens.

There’s the young one, and he’s a chatterbox, always sounding like he’s full of sunlight and good cheer.

There’s the flat one, and his tone never, ever changes, never wavers. He’s pretty quiet.

There’s the old one, and he barks, and he shouts, and god is he taxing to listen to.

There’s another he hadn’t heard on the first day, a woman. She sounds as cheerful as the young one, every word practically a song.

And then there’s the runt. He’s not as consistent as the others, but his voice sounds like someone’s steadily grinding a sharp rock against his fucking soul. Weary, tired. He sounds a little peppier when talking to the old one, and a little warier when talking to the woman. They do sound like the oldest of the pack, he supposes. The leaders?

He drums his fingers on his stomach as he lies on his back, helmet on, listening. He’s impatient. He doesn’t know why. Of course he’s not going to learn an entirely new language in a few days. And it’s not like there’s any hurry. Clearly, the runt is fine. More or less. He’s got friends. Or at least people who won’t leave him for dead without reason. And it’s not like Grif’s going to ever _talk_ to any of them. But still, he dutifully listens.

There’s not much going on in the helmet right now, just occasional comments from young, old, and flat. He listens, and he hears the runt’s labored breathing and the slowly-growing-louder sound of lapping waves. God, he can recognize his _breathing._ Maybe he should go and visit Kai--

There’s a strange, weirdly loud _click_ and one of young’s comments is cut off abruptly, unnaturally. And then--

\--the runt _screams--_

And Grif screams back. He shoots up and out of his alcove, electrified and terrified, ears ringing. What the fuck!? What the _hell_ was that? He had sounded so, so-- _pained--_

Grif realizes he’s swimming towards the beach he’d left the runt at. He doesn’t stop.

If the runt’s on land, there’s nothing he can do. But he heard that he was by the shore, he heard the waves. Maybe he’s close to where Grif dumped him that day. Maybe he can reach him, maybe he can distract a predator or help some way or-- surely his pack’s got his back, it’d be dangerous to leave the weakest member alone, surely, surely.

He doesn’t stop or slow down. But he listens. He hears the runt’s breathing _(just_ the runt’s breathing, no concerned or surprised questions from his pack, nothing at all), even louder now, panicked and gasping, gasping for air. Is it in the water? Does it need air again? Is Grif going to have to fish that stupid bastard out again?

How is he supposed to reach him in time?

“Who was that!?” the runt asks. Grif doesn’t know what he’d said, but he knows that tone. He’s scared.

He remembers that he screamed into the helmet, that the creatures can hear him through it. A chill runs down his spine, and he wonders if things are going to be okay.

“I heard you! You’re there! You--you’re definitely-- _someone’s_ on my channel, okay, I didn’t imagine that!”

“Chill,” Grif pants because the catfish’s out of the bag, whatever, just lean into it. “I’m on my way.”

The runt quiets at that, breath still loud, but calming down. So he isn’t being attacked, probably. Maybe he fell, got hurt, stuck? How is he supposed to help with that, exactly? Why isn’t his pack coming, talking?

“Is… is that _you?”_ the runt says, a question, he thinks. “Did you take my helmet? How long have you-- oh my god. No, no way.”

He sounds calm enough, so Grif concentrates on his swimming. He’s slow, he likes to drift, but if he wants to, when he _needs_ to, he can be fucking _fast._ Soon he sees the cliff face, he’s angling upwards and to the side a bit, remembering, still not slowing down, still not listening to the creature’s useless questions. 

He tears the helmet off as the surface rapidly approaches and drops it to be found later and practically erupts onto the beach, skidding along with an incoming wave onto the shore, arms forward so he doesn’t face plant, digging grooves into the wet sand. He looks up.

And there he is, staring right back down at him, still tall and red, still with that weird leg and a stump instead of an arm, but wearing a helmet now. There he is.

The creature. 


	7. fucking charades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simmons, heart hammering and breath baited, barely able to believe what he’s seeing, waits for him to stand up.
> 
> He doesn’t.
> 
> His eyes drift down the alien’s body. They halt. Widen.

Simmons gets a good look at the alien this time, because they end up staring at each other for one long wide eyed beat of silence. It’s growing increasingly awkward. Oh god, Richard Simmons, going where no man has gone before, having awkward social interactions with  _ fucking aliens.  _ He’s hopeless. 

The alien slowly props himself up on his arms while looking cautiously up at Simmons, like a hasty movement might make him lunge for him or something. Simmons, heart hammering and breath baited, barely able to believe what he’s seeing, waits for him to stand up. 

He doesn’t. 

His eyes drift down the alien’s body. They halt. Widen. 

Simmons makes a choked, strangled noise, and the mermaid--merman?-- looks abruptly concerned before his expression smoothes out in a controlled, artificial sort of way into something more bored and detached. 

Because that is definitely a-- a mer. Right in front of him. Alien mermaids. Are a thing. Apparently. 

Simmons has to sit down. He realizes abruptly he hasn’t practiced sitting on the ground or the floor yet, sitting only in chairs or on benches or beds. He’s never liked doing it, after all, it’s dirty down there. But he’s rapidly beginning to feel lightheaded so he decides to be spontaneous and reckless for once in his life and just goes for it. 

It’s becomes more of a controlled fall than a proper sitting down motion halfway through, and the mer’s concern grows slightly less properly veiled for a moment as he side eyes him warily, not having to crane his head to look up at him so much now that Simmons is sitting cross legged on the sand. Simmons is-- Simmons has no idea what’s going on here. 

So he just looks at the mer for now, trying to let the situation somehow sink in. There are those orange eyes he’s been dreaming about, not as glowy as he remembers, but then again, it isn’t as dark right now as it had been last time. The sun’s out in full swing, bathing the mer in a bright light that makes the sight of him all the more undeniable. There’s that long, ridiculously large mass of dark hair, so long that it prevents Simmons from seeing where brown flesh turns into bright orange scales. But he can see them, he can see that huge, trailing tail, so great that some of it’s still in the water. 

He’s… he’s definitely actually seeing this. His hand is reaching out for the mer without him even realizing it, needing to touch, needing to confirm. He really shouldn’t be so unwise with his one remaining hand. 

Thankfully, instead of seizing on it and ripping his arm off, the mer just flinches minutely away. Simmons feels like a jerk now, which is better than feeling like he was just given an amputation by an alien; he knows from intimate experience of having felt both of those emotions. 

His hand retreats before it makes contact, and the mer looks at him intently. He lets his hand fall to the ground and curls his fingers into the sand, _ something _ to let the tension rapidly building up in himself out. 

“Um,” he says, his voice cracking on even that one syllable. Fuck. What had he even been planning to say? Because he would love to know. 

The mer looks at him, and then sits up as much as he can on one hip, leaning on one arm. He reaches out to him slowly, telegraphing, like Simmons had done towards him only a moment ago. Simmons doesn’t flinch away, frozen, anticipating. 

The mer’s touch on his helmet is horribly light, so much so that he can’t feel it through the armor, which is the exact opposite of what he wants. He wants to  _ feel _ him. 

He wastes a solid thirty seconds on starting at the mer in expectation for his touch to grow more purposeful or strong while he stares right back in an equal amount of expectation. Expectation of what? What does he think Simmons is going to do, exactly? What does he want him to do? 

The mer frowns at him impatiently, leans forward and reaches out with his other hand so he’s got one hand planted at each side of Simmons’ helmet now, and then he  _ yanks _ the helmet towards himself, hard. Simmons yelps and bats his hands away. 

Okay, well, he  _ definitely _ felt that, so. Hurray for sanity? 

In other good (?) news, he thinks he knows what the mer wants: to see his face. The now familiar uncomfortable surge of emotions that swell whenever he has to show his face washes over him, and he rides it out. He has to do it every time the camp has a meal anyways. And the mer’s already seen his face. It’s fine. It’s fine. 

(But maybe he hadn’t been able to get a good look at Simmons in the lighting-- in that brief span of time-- 

Simmons doesn’t like the expressions people make when they first notice his glass eye, the doubletake, the disbelief, the flash of pity, of horror, or the careful, conscious non reaction. He hasn’t enjoyed any of the reactions he’s gotten so far, if for no other reason but that it  _ reminds  _ him. Of what he looks like now, how he is.  _ Why _ he’s like this. As if he doesn’t already have enough reminders without people  _ helping.)  _

Simmons suffers through some software checks to keep the armor from freaking out and takes his helmet off without any fanfare. He had to practice that, taking it off in front of others without shaking or anything, ignoring his spiraling thoughts. 

He looks carefully at the mer to see his reaction. 

He doesn’t carefully avoid looking at his eye at least, like some people do, like it’s too horrible to witness. In fact, he purposefully looks right into his eyes. His orange eyes are bright and fixated on his, his mouth a little open, and he leans just a little closer towards Simmons, almost unconsciously, it seems. 

Simmons blinks. He doesn’t know _ what _ that expression is, what it’s supposed to mean when it’s directed at him and his blank eye. He’s never received it. Maybe it’s an alien mer thing? 

“Your…” Simmons speaks up without thinking, stunned into words, if that’s a thing. “Your face is  _ glowing.”  _

It is. Across the bridge of his nose and his cheeks, flecks of soft yellow-orange bloom to life, like bioluminescent freckles. Simmons leans in to look closer, amazed. He reaches out a hand again, and this time the mer doesn’t flinch away, lets him touch him. He brushes a thumb across the bioluminescence as if he could just rub it away like wet paint. If anything, the color strengthens and spreads at the motion, the touch. 

“What is that?” he asks, forgetting that the mer clearly can’t speak his language for a moment. “Some sort of defense mechanism? What it’s purpose? Is it like an animal wearing bright colors to make predators think it’s poisonous--?” 

The mer’s eyes are very wide. Simmons remembers himself, realizes he’s _ fondling a stranger’s face  _ (even if that stranger is an alien), and he stops mid sentence to yank his hand away with a humiliating squeak. He can feel his face going bright red and wants to retreat behind his visor. Why does he have to be such an easy blusher? Other people don’t know his pain. 

The mer breaks the silence with words Simmons can’t understand, and then there’s a large hand on his chin tipping his head back and oh, okay, he guesses this is karma, then. Simmons was clearly the one who crossed the face-touching boundary first. He deserves this hell. He deserves hell, period. 

Simmons looks up from the ground to the mer, but the mer is too busy frowning with concentration at him to meet his eyes again, turning his head this way and that, looking intently for something. Eventually, he let’s go of his chin, but then his hands are raking through Simmons’ short hair, and really, he has limits, he has a _ lot  _ of limits. Simmons is not the sort of guy who appreciates having his personal space invaded, and it’s not like he’s touched the mer’s hair, right? Even though he really kinda wants to. So this is totally unfair. His logic is sound. 

He grabs one of the mer’s wrists with his hand, pulls it away, and then goes to remove the second one. One of the many inconvenient negatives of having only one hand is that by the time he’s removed one hand the other one’s already back. They continue like that for a little while, and Simmons feels as childish as a little kid locked in a nuh-uh-yeah-uh battle. The mer finally withdraws his searching hands when Simmons, frustrated and at his wit’s end, snaps at one of the mer’s fingers with his teeth,  _ clack. _ Not closing on flesh, god no,  _ ew. _ Just a silly, empty threat that earns him an alarmed look that grows unimpressed and a little relieved when the mer catches sight of Simmons’ flath teeth. 

They stare at each other for a moment with twin irritated looks before Simmons has to cover his mouth with his hand to cover a burgeoning smile. Five minutes alone with an alien that doesn’t even share his language and he manages to get into some sort of strange slap fight argument with him, and now they’re both ticked off at and exasperated with each other. It’s just typical, really. 

He looks back up at the mer who’s looking concerned again, and changes his mind. No. This really isn’t typical at all. 

The mer makes eye contact with him, raises his hand to the back of his own head, holds it, and grimaces with exaggerated pain. He stops and looks at him with a curious raised eyebrow. 

Simmons starts as he realizes that the mer’s asking if his head hurts. He’s communicating with a brand new species. A species that can think and reason and do  _ fucking charades!  _

He swallows dryly as he raises a hand to the back of his head in a mirroring gesture before forcing himself to smile reassuringly, no matter how nervous he feels.  _ Nothing wrong here,  _ he tries to communicate. 

From the way the mer moves on to another body part, he thinks he understands. From the way the mer carefully goes over every other body part with Simmons makes him think that the mer is  _ convinced  _ that Simmons is hurt somehow. 

He’s trying to figure out how to tell him that he’s fine in a way that doesn’t involve manually going over every body part he has when he hears them. 

His squad. It’s faint, but he can hear Sarge’s furious bellow easily. He is  _ loud.  _

“SIMMONS,” Sarge yowls from somewhere in the jungle. “CHECK YOUR GODDAMNED  _ COMMS!”  _

… Oops. Simmons abruptly remembers that he is, technically, sort of, okay full stop, _ sneaking off  _ at the moment. Breaking the rules. A thrill goes through him at the thought. He’s never broken the rules before. 

Sarge shouts again and the thrill dies, reminded that the first time he’s broken the rules and he’s been immediately caught out, his superior officer clearly furious with him. Just his luck, really. 

He looks at the mer who seems to be looking back and forth from the treeline to Simmons with an expression of indecision and that very particular face that manages to say all on its own _ it’s about time.  _

“You should probably go,” he says. “Sarge is kinda,” looking for any excuse at all to shoot something, “triggerhappy.” 

The mer stares at Simmons in incomprehension. Simmons flushes again and gestures towards the ocean. The mer takes the hint and begins dragging himself back into the water with his arms. He’ll make it in time, it’s an extremely short trip and Sarge’s voice is still a ways off-- 

Silent Lopez bursts through the treeline and stares at them, Simmons and the mer both freezing. 

_ “Is that a fucking mermaid!?”  _ Lopez breaks the silence, which at the very least galvanizes the mer into moving again. And then he’s gone, his long hair floating at the surface for a moment before it disappears with him as he follows the ground and the water level rises above him, the very tip of his fin submerging into the water with a flick. 

He manages to give Simmons a good splash with his tail as he leaves, though. He’s not entirely sure if it was accidental or not, blinking the seawater out of his eyes, hair plastered down. 

He stares at the now completely unremarkable water blankly for a moment before Sarge and Donut finally catch up with Lopez. 

“Simmons!” Donut cries out, and he reluctantly tears his eyes away from the water, looking up at his approaching squad. “We were so worried!” 

“Speak for yourself, Private, I don’t experience any emotions besides confidence, triumph, and bloodlust,” Sarge says. “And I’m feeling a record level high of that last one right now.” 

_ “There was a mermaid! Just a moment ago! Seriously--”  _

“We can gossip later, Lopez,” Donut interrupts, and Simmons blinks as he realizes that Lopez has no way of telling the rest of the squad about what he just saw. Is that… good? He should definitely tell Grey about what he saw now that he’s sure that it wasn’t a hallucination. 

“Did you go into the water again, Private?” Sarge asks, looking at him. Looking at the water dripping down his face and hair, he realizes. His uncovered-- 

He realizes that he’d been so preoccupied with thinking about the mer that he completely forgot to feel self conscious about having his helmet off around people for the very first time since the explosion. 

“No sir,” he says honestly. 

He puts his helmet back on and clicks back onto the squad line. 

“A wave just hit me,” he lies. 

Why did he just lie? 

_ “You--!” _ Lopez says, indignant, incredulous, before apparently being lost for words, and Simmons’ shoulders hunch guiltily at the tone all on their own. 

He opens his mouth to tell the truth and he chokes on it. Why should they believe him? He’d sound crazy. He’s got no one’s word to back him up but Lopez, whose word is goddamned incomprehensible. He has no proof. And he knows what it looks like, what he looks like. Someone who’s breaking, broken. 

Now that the mer’s gone and his squad’s back with him, everything that just happened feels surreal and distant again, hard to believe. But it happened. It was real. 

“We’re going back to base,” Sarge says like a command, a fact that no one can argue against, and he drops a hand onto Simmons’ shoulder and squeezes it like he’s reassuring himself that Simmons is there, that he won’t run off again. 

He was real. 


	8. Aquatic, sentient, non-hostile extraterrestrial life.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just because she’s smart doesn’t mean that she’s infallible. She makes mistakes just like everyone else. She burned her tongue on her coffee this very morning, in fact. But leaving a probably suicidal man alone while he was still on the edge was an entirely different world from drinking too hot coffee.

Grey has always been smart enough to get what she wants. A scholarship, a grant, enough degrees to drown in-- she gets it. She’s smart enough to know what’s true, smart enough to know when she  doesn’t know what’s true, and smart enough to know when people don’t want to be told what’s true. 

She knew her superior officers didn’t want to be told, “The way these coral formations have arisen is unnatural and artificial. Something patient and reasonably sentient has deliberately encouraged them to grow this way. Let me go and discover what so I can study it.” 

For one, they had their hands full with another alien species already. Sure, they may be interested in new allies to aid them in their war, but if this was what she thought it was then they wouldn’t be of much help. This species, whatever they were, if they even existed (and she was hopelessly, stupidly sure that they did), seemed to be aquatic. Which meant that they were technologically inferior (unless they’d found a way around the water + electricity = corpses everywhere issue, which she would be  _ very _ interested in), and not to even mention  _ extremely  _ unwieldy to transport to battlefields. No new tech, no new soldiers, and a planet unfit for mass cohabitation of humans. Not helpful, and therefore of no interest. 

Not to a stick-up-their-ass commander, at least. But Grey was, and would always be, a scientist first and foremost. And non-human sentient life from beyond the stars that didn’t want to burn all humans to a crisp? Was the biggest dream of any scientist, no exceptions. 

So she lied, and she bribed, and she manipulated, and she, well, she may have blackmailed and subtly psychologically tortured and drugged just a _ little, _ but it was for the good of mankind. Just because it wasn’t for the good of the war didn’t mean it wasn’t good. Some people were beginning to forget that with the conflict dragging out so long, the body count piling up so monstrously high. 

But now she’s finally here. A lone scientist with no one else educated enough to tell that she’s hiding something, that something’s up. With the equipment she needs, and a small squad of soldiers that she needs less, but that she doesn’t mind. Company isn’t so bad on occasion. 

She promised herself that she wouldn’t get distracted while she was on her research mission, but here she is tinkering with a completely unrelated project in her tent while she should be ordering the soldiers to clear a rough path to the shoreline from their camp, or seeing if all of her scuba gear is functioning correctly before taking it out for a swim towards that oh so fascinating, impossible coral reef, or--

Well. This new project shouldn’t take her long, and really, it’s fascinating! She’s sure she can get away with asking for an extension somehow if she isn’t satisfactorily finished by the time the six months are up anyways. She’s smart. This is one of the few ways she knows how to be truly nice instead of just chirpily polite, and Simmons looks like he really  _ needs  _ someone to be nice to him right now, and Sarge had told her in a hushed voice that first night after his patrol with Simmons that ended with a lost helmet that  _ I’m worried about that boy, miss. I think he might be feeling a bit careless with his life if you what I mean.  _

She knew what he meant. She’d requested and received all of her guards files, and she recalled how recently Simmons had been let go from sick leave, how the dates didn’t match up in a way that told her it was too soon anyways, how he’d never once received or sent a personal message to anyone in or outside the army. And you didn’t need to be a genius to tell that he was lying from the way he desperately avoided eye contact, the way he grimaced, and sweated, and stood stiffly at attention. 

And so Sarge had had a talk with his squad, a rule to never leave the camp alone was made, and Grey decided to order some parts before she truly got cracking on her research. But she’d start soon! She would. She’d just--

But then she got the parts and she got excited, her mind already racing far ahead of her and her surroundings, and she left Simmons alone. 

Just because she’s smart doesn’t mean that she’s infallible. She makes mistakes just like everyone else. She burned her tongue on her coffee this very morning, in fact. But leaving a probably suicidal man alone while he was still on the edge was an entirely different world from drinking too hot coffee. 

She remembers herself abruptly, randomly, and she drops her tools and runs out to see an empty camp. 

He’s gone. Squeaky clean yesman Richard Simmons disobeyed the rules and left the camp alone. 

She feels sick. 

“Simmons, come in,” she trills into her comms like nothing’s wrong at all. 

Nothing. 

“If you don’t respond I’ll have to tell Sarge…” she says coaxingly. 

Silence. Nada, zip, zilch,  _ nil. _

Grey’s a woman of her word when she wants to be. She calls up Sarge’s line. 

“I lost track of Simmons, he’s gone,” she says as soon as it clicks over. As much as she likes to listen to the sergeant ramble, now really isn’t the time. 

Sarge swears, confirms, and switches back to his squad’s line. 

She’s left alone with her thoughts. She hurriedly escapes them by going back to her project inside her tent. She looks down at it blankly. The inspiration isn’t flowing like it had been a moment ago. She could force it and power her way through it like she does those rare times she feels like this… but this is something that she wants to get perfectly. 

Instead, she wanders around the camp, looking for busy work before it occurs to her to prep her medicine bag in case-- in case she needs to get somewhere quickly. She does so. Then she washes her hands, finally gets around to checking her scuba gear for problems (it's fine), washes her hands, organizes her toolbox, washes her hands, starts seriously considering doing  _ chores  _ but is then thankfully interrupted by the squad finally arriving before she sinks to making beds or something. 

They come back with Simmons, who thankfully does not seem to have thrown himself off any cliffs or anything during his time away. 

“--dishwashing duty for the next  _ three years,  _ Private--” Sarge is saying. 

“We won’t stay here that long,” Donut reminds him. 

“Six years, then! And we’ll go out of way to make more work for you as well. Soldiers, Doctor Grey, from now on we will eat like a five star establishment! Each potato gets its own dish! Only one mouthful of fluid is permitted in a cup at a time, no dishes or cups get reused before they’re washed--”

“This doesn’t sound sustainable--” 

“What were you doing, Simmons?” Grey casually asks like she’s just making small talk, and everyone falls silent. 

“... Out for a walk, Doctor.”  _ Such _ a bad liar. Almost endearingly so, really. 

At a glance, no one else seems to believe him, either. No one but her seems to find it endearing, though. Oh well. 

“At this rate I’m going to have to put a perimeter shock collar on you!” she jokes. She’d be able to come up with a much more sophisticated solution than that, of course. 

_ “That was a lie,” _ Lopez grumbles. 

_ “No.  _ Really?” Grey says with a playful smile and a little eyeroll. 

Lopez and Simmons freeze. 

“Uh,” Simmons says. “Did you just--” 

“You know Spanish?” Sarge interrupts, not content to wait and let Simmons finish his question first. 

“Hey, me three!” Donut says, and Grey kindly resists shaking her head at him. 

_ “There was a--”  _

“HEY LOPEZ, UH, LOOK BEHIND YOU!” 

_ “--mermaid! Simmons was meeting with a mermaid!” _

Aquatic, sentient, non-hostile extraterrestrial life. 

“Um, not that I don’t know, but what’s he saying?” Donut asks. 

“Oh, just the usual.  _ Grey is a genius and was right all along,  _ that sort of thing,” she says. “Simmons, be a dear and come with me to my tent. I’d like to ask you some questions.” 

Simmons lets out a tiny  _ eep.  _ Grey grins. 


	9. establish third contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “... Yes, Dr. Grey.” He sounds almost sullen suddenly, anxiety draining out of his voice.
> 
> “And if you go along with my plans.”
> 
> “Plans?” Oh wait, there’s the anxiety again.
> 
> “You do want to establish third contact, don’t you?” she asks.

Grif, true to form, doesn’t leave the surface until he gets spotted by yet _another_ alien. Whatever, all of that air was starting to get to him anyways. Also, the touching. Who knew the runt was so… handsy? And pretty? Well, Grif already knew he was pretty because Grif is an awful pervert that thinks aliens are hot now, apparently, but he got _really_ up close this time. Close enough to be pretty sure that the alien had just been scared or startled somehow rather than hurt, he thinks.

He hopes.

His heart’s beating fast, but he remembers to snag the helmet on his flight away from the scene of the crime despite how urgently he wants to get away. He makes his way back to his maybe-a-cave despite how urgently he wants to linger as well, trying to watch what happens after he leaves from a distance. They’d definitely be able to see him; there are no convenient jutting rocks near enough to that particular shoreline for him to be able to hide behind and still be able to see enough to discern anything at all.

He feels safe the moment he’s home, stupidly and irrationally. The alcove is not exactly a defensible location ready to weather a siege or invasion at a moment’s notice. But he does feel safe, safe enough to be able to think clearly and realize, oh hey, if he’s so curious he should just put the helmet back on, you dumbass.

He does.

“--swear it was just two times.” The runt’s voice rings clearly immediately, reassuringly enough. Less reassuring is how tense and desperate he sounds, though.

“Oh, so you met an alien just two times without telling me! Well _that_ makes it better then. And when were you planning on telling me, actually? After the third time?” The woman’s voice says in her usual friendly, cheerful tone. Is she trying to calm him down?

“I--I just, the first time I wasn’t sure he was-- _real--”_

“And the second time?” she asks, and it’s the smoothest and calmest Grif’s ever heard anyone speak.

There’s a silence where the runt’s response should be. The woman breaks it for him.

“It’s okay,” she says, and the runt lets out an exhalation of relief. “I understand. But I hope you’ll eventually realize that you _can_ trust me.”

“I trust--” the runt says right at the tail end of her words, leaving his response no pause.

“Besides, it’s not like you’d be able to keep a secret from someone, let alone someone like _me,_ for any significant amount of time,” she interrupts him. “You only lasted as long as you did--less than a week, I’ll note--because of your tendency to take off your helmet as rarely as possible and your withdrawal from the rest of the team. You really do have a terrible poker face, Simmons. Tell me, is the hiding your face thing an affectation to try and mitigate that, or something to do with your obvious insecurity over your in--”

“Are you going to tell Command about the alien?” the runt urgently interrupts her in turn, cutting off whatever it was she was about to say.

“Oh, sorry! I slip into psychoanalysis mode so easily, I know it’s terribly rude. If you ever want your personality explained to you though, well, you know where to find me! And no.”

A pause.

“No?”

“No, as in I’m not going to tell Command about the presence of sentient alien life on this planet.”

A longer pause, somehow giving off a stunned, incredulous sort of air.

“ _Why?”_ the runt finally says.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the alien? Same reason. I don’t trust them. Command has lost perspective, grown shortsighted. They think the war is everything, when war has repeatedly proven that it will always, inevitably, end.”

“There’s never been a war like this.”

“They say that about every war.”

“Yeah, but this one’s got _aliens!”_

“What’s so special about aliens? We just found an entire third species! Who knows how many others we’ve missed? Not looking in unexpected places, shoddy work, bad funding, a narrow minded view of how a sentient species should look and act-- we could have missed lots, when you think about it. We barely discovered this one! If I tell them, it’ll be when I’m ready and I think the timing is good. Now, I’ll forgive you for your lie of omission if you give me detailed retellings of your encounters with the alien and his behavior.”

“... Yes, Dr. Grey.” He sounds almost sullen suddenly, anxiety draining out of his voice.

“And if you go along with my plans.”

“Plans?” Oh wait, there’s the anxiety again.

“You _do_ want to establish third contact, don’t you?” she asks.

He’s interrupted from intently listening to nonsense as if he’ll suddenly realize The Clue and it will all just snap together and reveal itself to him and make him fluent in alienese by his sister arriving.

“What are you _wearing?”_ His eyes snap open and he looks towards the entrance to his home. There she is, swimming closer and giving him a look like he’s finally lost his mind. Sorta amused, sorta incredulous. She’s wearing way more jewelry than she used to, gifts from her friends, seashell necklaces and bracelets, strings of pearls woven into her long, trailing hair.

“Uh,” he says, thrown off by her sudden appearance. He can’t remember the last time she visited him-- it was always him visiting her.

“On your head, dummy!” She knocks on the helmet for emphasis and he takes it off, tossing it gently off in a direction away from Kai.

“Just something I found at one of the old battlefields. It’s dark, helps me sleep,” he tries. “What’re you doing here?”

“What I can’t visit my bro if I feel like it?” she crosses her arms, apparently offended at the question, her bracelets clacking against each other. Diversion success. “Also, since when have you needed help sleeping?”

Diversion failure.

“‘s too quiet here now,” he tries again, and only realizes that he’s gotten too close to the truth when her expression twists with guilt. Damn it, he hadn’t meant to make her feel bad just for moving out. It’s his problem if he’s a lonely piece of shit about it.

“Seriously, what do you need?” he asks, mentally readying himself to get rid of some sort of infestation in her new place or solve a conflict with one of her neighbours or exes or--

“You haven’t visited in over three days, bro. That’s a new record.” She says it with a joking sort of tone, but he can see her try and hide her worried expression. Oh.

He shrugs. “Didn’t wanna be a pest. Visited Locus instead.”

She seems to relax some as she looks around and doesn’t find the place to be messier than usual, when he rises instead of staying lying down as they talk. He gets kinda… yeah. Sometimes. But he’s not like that right now, so there’s no need to worry about him.

“You’re not a pest,” she says, bumping her shoulder against his fondly, a brief press of skin on skin that unwinds him just a bit, makes him smile at her. “I missed you.”

_Oh._

Maybe his visits aren’t as unwelcome as all that. The thought cheers him up an embarrassing amount.

“So how’s Locus doing? Still doing the stoic solitary farmer thing?”

“Yeah, same old,” he replies, and sinks into a conversation with Kai like a stone through the water.

* * *

 When she leaves, they’ve spent hours bitching about one of Kai’s roommates, left and come back to the alcove twice to go food hunting, argued vehemently about whether or not Grif’s home is a cave or not again, gossiped about Doc who apparently went batshit on someone who tried to take his territory from him again (idiots underestimate him a lot), and Kai gave him one of her strings of pearls, tied it around his wrist. He sinks onto his nest, tired and satisfied and happy, and only remembers to put the helmet back on right before he falls asleep.

 “The sensors says he put it on,” the woman says immediately, quickly and excited.

“Wuh?” the runt replies sleepily. Really, they’re still talking?

“Put him on our threeway channel.”

“Um, yes Dr. Grey!”

There’s that strange _click_ sound again.

“All right, you know where to take it from here. I’ll try not interfere.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

There’s a silence.

“Now would be nice,” the woman says.

“I know! I just…” The runt takes a deep breath. “Uh, alien guy? You there?”

Grif closes his eyes and rolls over. But the runt keeps asking questions, and the woman continues not answering.

“What made him say something to you the first time?” the woman asks, sounding like she’s in deep thought.

“Oh, well, it was a little after I, uh, screamed, I guess, for totally normal and manly reasons--”

There’s suddenly a very, _very_ loud sound going through the helmet, and Grif almost has a heart attack. He definitely isn’t anywhere close to falling asleep any longer. The runt screams in response to the sound, just as startled as Grif is, apparently.

“What the _fuck?”_ bursts out of him without his sayso.

“What the fuck!?” the runt asks, indignant and shrill. “Uh, Dr. Grey, ma’am.”

“Yes! I got a recording of that! That’s another data point! See if you can get him to talk more, or else…”

“Please, my eardrums,” the runt groans.

Grif squints up at the ceiling in suspicion. “Did the woman just make that noise? Because she sounds way too fucking cheerful.” Holy shit, was she actually a jerk the whole time? Was the young one also a jerk that just sounded nice? Was nothing holy?

“Oh!” the runt says, sounding happy and surprised. “You’re talking! Yes, thank you!”

Grif smiles wryly into the helmet at that. Was that happiness because of…?

“Hey?” he tries.

“Yeah, like that,” the runt says happily. “Thanks. Keep going.”

It was because of him. That was so… _embarrassingly_ pleasing. He tried to keep the smile out of his voice as he had the closest thing he could have to a conversation with the runt, speaking what he knew would only be understood as meaningless nonsense in response to meaningless nonsense spoken at him, the other party knowing that he wouldn’t understand it. It was so stupid. But...

Today was the most Grif had spoken to anyone in ages.


	10. Easy peasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So what you’re saying,” Sarge says. “Is that we’re basically in the Independence Day.”
> 
> “No,” Grey says.

Step one of Grey’s plan is this: remain on the line with the alien. Constantly. He was already wolfing his food down as quickly as he could before as he doesn’t like having his face bare in public any longer, but he hasn’t slept in his helmet since he was last out in the field, which doesn’t really bring good and enjoyable memories rushing back to him. Each time he wakes up to his visor his sleep-groggy mind expects it to be due to the shaking hand of one of his tired (dead) squadmates whispering  _ hey asshole it’s your turn to stand watch now.  _

Step two: keep the alien talking as much as possible. They can’t see each other through the helmet, so the only way he’s found to successfully encourage conversation so far is to make happy noises whenever he speaks, which is more than just a bit embarrassing whenever he remembers that Grey’s silently on the line with him and recording every sound being made for her research. He must sound like a brainless idiot, sounding so pleased to repeat over and over again into every beat of silence between incomprehensible nonsense babbled at him with  _ yes go on please. _ He could be saying anything, of course. The alien definitely doesn’t understand him. 

Never mind the fact that some of that happiness he injects into his voice is genuine, that the thought of someone paying this much time and attention to him kind of… lights something up inside of him. That’s just the mortifying, horribly huge part of him that sometimes takes over and makes him do and say stuff that keeps him up at night for the rest of his life, staring up at the ceiling in red faced horror, speaking. It’s not like there’s much to do down in the ocean. Probably. Maybe? He actually has no idea. Grey certainly wants to know. 

Which is the reason why she’s making him do all of this. 

“Translation devices already exist,” she says excitedly. “We’re just programming one with an entirely new language now. Easy peasy! We just need to get enough data for me to begin to see the pattern of their grammar and such, and to give the device something to work with. The more speech samples, the more sophisticated and correct the device will be.” 

“Easy peasy,” Simmons repeats faintly. 

“So what you’re saying,” Sarge says. “Is that we’re basically in the Independence Day.” 

“No,” Grey says. 

“War of the Worlds, Signs, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, Mars Attacks! Aliens are attacking and we need to defend the human race!” 

Simmons looks doubtfully around them at the foreign jungle they’re camping in. “Aren’t we the invaders in this scenario?” 

“Sarge, if you want to go to war with an alien species we’ve already got one going on with the Sangheili,” Grey says. “We’re putting our best foot forward with this one! Humanity’s got a blank slate with the mers, and we’re going to take advantage of that and finally make some allies.” 

“But underwater wrestling!” 

“We can underwater wrestle ourselves later, if you want.” 

Sarge makes a contemplative, considering noise and Simmons trades a horrified glance with Lopez. Was this… flirting? 

Donut coos, which is a strike in favor of flirting, and he shudders, turning back to concentrate on his meal. 

“Oh, and come and meet me in my tent after breakfast, Simmons,” Grey says like a casual afterthought, making him choke on his canned beans. Donut thumps him on his back, and Sarge makes some noises about the Heimlich maneuver, although it thankfully doesn’t come to that. 

Simmons meets Grey in her tent after breakfast. He’s not in the habit of disobeying people in charge of him, especially if that person is scary. 

“What did you want to see me for, Dr. Grey?” he asks nervously, standing at attention even though he strictly doesn’t need to. 

She smiles sweetly at him and says, “Now, there’s no need for that!” and he reluctantly relaxes his posture in front of her. It feels unnatural and like he’s deliberately letting down his guard in enemy territory or something. 

“First of all, I just wanted to say that you’ve been doing a good job.” 

Simmons perks up immediately at this,  _ good job _ ringing in his ears. “Oh?” he asks as casually as he can manage, which probably isn’t very casual at all. 

Grey grins at him. “You’ve gotten me an extraordinary amount of data this last week, I think I’ve already almost gotten enough for the translation device!” 

“Oh,” he says. Meaning that he’ll soon be able to understand the alien, as much as two different species can ever understand each other, anyways. The alien will be able to understand him. He breaks out into a sweat, abruptly and strangely stressed out by this thought. Well, that was good, right? What they were going for? It’s not like the alien was going to get--  _ bored  _ of him once he could understand him or anything, right? That was ridiculous. Simmons was an alien to him, which made him inherently special and interesting. Never mind the fact that there were four other aliens with him that he could talk to instead, one of whom was an actual literal genius. 

“In fact,” she goes on. “It should take me just enough time for me to finish it for you to get used to your upgrades! And then we can finally initiate first contact. Well, first contact for me and third contact for you, anyways.” 

“... Upgrades?” he asks, utterly confused. 

She walks over to the table in the middle of her tent, the cheap kind that you can fold up. It’s covered by a sheet, and she whips it grandly off to reveal… 

An arm and leg prosthetics, shiny and new and sturdy looking. 

“Ta da!” she trills. “They’re entirely waterproof! No more having to remove them or covering them in tarps to take showers, tough enough that it’d take a tank to snap either of these babies, light on maintenance requirements--although I did write up a little instructions manual for you anyways, you seem to like them, and they’re highly responsive, register pressures, temperatures, and even textures, and has anti-rust technology. We will have to do some light surgery to be able to connect your nerve endings to the prosthetic but don’t worry about that, I’ve got degrees and even some prizes in surgery! I wasn’t able to make you an eye, I’d need a far more sophisticated lab and equipment to safely to do that, it’d practically require brain surgery to connect it--” 

Grey stops her babbling when Simmons bursts into tears. 

“Oh, oh dear, no, don’t do that here please-- Donut? DONUT!?  _ I require your expertise!”  _

It is, all over, a pretty embarrassing morning for him and everyone involved, although Donut doesn’t seem entirely capable of feeling embarrassment judging by some of the things he says. So, just another day in Richard Simmons’ life, then. 


	11. unfathomably stupid on so very many levels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hello.” 
> 
> And then, a moment later in an unfamiliar woman’s voice, a little flatter, sounding strangely stilted: “Hello.” 
> 
> He’s so surprised at hearing a new creature’s voice from the helmet at this point that it takes him a long moment to realize that  _ he just understood her.  _

The runt suddenly wants to talk to Grif constantly, and he caves and indulges him with embarrassing speed. When Kai was growing up (and still, to be honest) all she had to do to wrap him around her finger was look up at him with wide eyed excited expectation, or maybe even tremble a lip if what she wanted was  _ really _ stupid. You’d think he’d acquire something of an immunity after so much exposure to her cajoling and crocodile tears, but apparently he’s gotten _ worse _ since all the runt has to do is sound pleased at any response he gets and that’s it, Grif’s a goner, he’s babbling bullshit just to fill in the silence, stopping for breath occasionally mostly just to hear the runt’s reaction. 

He honestly has no idea what’s going through the guy’s mind, or his own, for that matter. He was supposed to be trying to learn the creature’s language, but he wouldn’t have much luck with that if he was the one who was always talking, now would he? Actually, maybe that was what was going through the runt’s mind? Was  _ he  _ trying to learn  _ Grif’s _ language? 

That thought is…  _ very _ good. Too good, probably. He’s probably just… bored, or something. There can’t be much to do up on land. Probably. Maybe? He actually has no idea. He kind of wants to find out. 

He’s just put the helmet back on, having finished a meal (larger than normal since he’s stopped snacking so much so that he can wear the helmet for longer stretches of time uninterrupted), when the woman speaks up. It’s rare of her to do so, it’s usually just him and the runt swapping nonsense together, but she’s the only other person he ever hears on the helmet now besides him, which he’s mildly curious about. She only ever speaks to the runt on top of that, not him, and he’s pretty sure from the silence he’s heard for the last hour that he’s already gone to sleep for the day. 

“Hello.” 

And then, a moment later in an unfamiliar woman’s voice, a little flatter, sounding strangely stilted: “Hello.” 

He’s so surprised at hearing a new creature’s voice from the helmet at this point that it takes him a long moment to realize that  _ he just understood her.  _ No. What? 

Calm down. It was just a very short word, easy to mishear. It probably meant something completely different in their language, his brain was just seeing patterns that weren’t there, like a face in a jagged rock. 

The woman says something incomprehensible, just like all the things she says are, and then the unfamiliar woman speaks up again. “This is Doctor Grey speaking, a human being. The voice you’re hearing after mine is a translator I built to help us communicate. Do you understand?” 

Okay, that definitely wasn’t his brain just overreacting. 

“... No?” he speaks up tentatively. “I mean, yes! I mean--” He spares a moment to flail a little with panic so he can calm down enough to think. “You  _ built _ a translator? Don’t you mean hired?” Maybe she’d hired a shitty translator. Where the hell had she found a translator that could speak both Western Shallows and… human? Man, that sounded stupid. Bad species name, humans. 

Holy shit, the creatures--humans--had a translator. He could talk to the runt.  _ Actually _ talk to the runt. And her first sentence to him hadn’t been ‘WE WILL CONSUME YOUR FLESH WEAKLING’ which was comforting and put some of his oh-shit-aliens-are-they-evil? worries to rest. The runt had admittedly been helping on that front for a while now even without the translator but fuck yes  _ actual talking!  _

Grey, then the translator. He has enough forethought to try and match up the sounds he hears to the words the translator speaks. Learning would go a lot faster with the translator around, he suspected. “Well, that’s not promising for my underwater tech theory. It was weak anyways! Perhaps I can show you the translator later as explanation? In person?” 

Meet up. A flash of wariness, but then the thought occurs: not just being able to talk to the runt, but being able to talk to him _ in person. _ Grif could tell him what a dumbass he was for walking into the ocean all alone without the proper tools, heckle him for clearly not sleeping enough, make fun of him for obviously not eating enough until he has a snack, and he wouldn’t be able to just take the helmet off to get away from it. 

The fact that all the possibilities that immediately sprang to his mind when he was offered the opportunity to have a real conversation with the runt involved aggravating him explains why he’s still single very nicely, he thinks. Not that he wants to date the runt, of course. That would be unfathomably stupid on so very many levels. 

“Bring, uh… the rest of your pack?” It suddenly occurred to him that it was kinda weird that he’d been referring to the guy he’s had multiple long ‘conversations’ with as ‘runt’. But what else was he supposed to do, just come up with a fake name for him? 

“Of course!” she responds chirpily. The translator does not bother replicating her pep, but he notes it. “Perhaps you’d like to bring some of yours as well?” she adds coaxingly. 

_ People don’t have packs, _ he thinks, and quickly bites his tongue on the reply as he immediately realizes the insulting implications of that. Best not start being a smartass just yet with these people (people, not creatures any longer, it was amazing how quickly just being able to understand someone could change your perceptions of them). At least not  _ too _ much of a smartass. 

“Sure, yes, packs,” he says. “I have one of those. I’ll bring someone.” 

“Wonderful! We’ll meet on the beach where you saved our dear wayward Simmons, then?” 

Simmons?  _ Simmons. _ The runt. His name was Simmons. Grif knew his name. 

He shouldn’t feel like he had a swarm of live shrimp swimming around in his stomach at something so small, and yet. 

“Yeah,” he says, trying not to sound weird, still distracted by the new information  _ (Simmons).  _ “At sundown.” 

“It’s a date!” 

He hears a distinctive click that he knows by now means she’s gone. Simmons. He was going to meet Simmons, and talk to Simmons, and possibly be lured into a trap by potentially hostile aliens and get his stupid ass murdered, and see Simmons, and-- 

He should probably bring someone along with him like he’d said he would, actually. Strength in numbers, right? His mind immediately jumps to Locus, but then swiftly shies away, remembering the way he’d driven his knife so easily through the visor of the helmet, the slit in the material that hovered in front of his vision even know. Locus was a great bro and would probably guarantee his survival, but… he could be a little triggerhappy when he was nervous. And the aliens definitely made him nervous, which was super fair. But Grif really, seriously wasn’t sure he’d be able to take it if his best friend murdered the guy he had saved that he was fairly sure was pretty goddamn harmless (and thought was sorta pretty to look at and fun to listen to and). 

No Locus for now. Maybe later, when Grif could swim up to him and honestly tell him that he’d hanged with them in person and not been speared for his troubles. He’d have a retroactive control freak heart attack, but it might just be enough assurance for him to give them a chance. 

His second thought is Kai. He’s almost indignant at himself over how stupid that consideration is. She’s not only reckless but  _ precious. _ He’s not gonna risk her over this, even if she’d be over moon at the idea of meeting up with the mysterious creatures. It’s gonna be a  _ long _ time before he’ll feel safe enough with these people to introduce them. 

His third thought is… Okay, it makes him groan, but it’s kinda perfect when he considers it. Grif doesn’t care about him, he’s a violent whirlwind in a fight, yet he’s still friendly enough not to throw the first punch. 

He’s going to bring Doc. 


	12. starved racoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So I had a conversation with the alien,” Grey says over breakfast.
> 
> “You what,” Simmons says.

“So I had a conversation with the alien,” Grey says over breakfast. 

“You what,” Simmons says. 

“And it went pretty well! We’ve got a meeting with him and one of his friends this evening.” 

“We  _ what,” _ Simmons says. 

“So our final showdown with the alien scourge is already nigh...” Sarge says, looking off into the sunrise. 

“And our  _ first _ showdown,” Donut says. 

“Sarge, I would like to stress that you must absolutely  _ not _ kill any of the aliens unless they attack us first.”

_ “Wouldn’t the five us then be at war with an entire species on our own until we’re evacuated…?”  _

“I’m sure it won’t come to that, Lopez! We’d just have to kill any witnesses and hide the bodies on land before trying again, easy peasy. Oh, only as a last resort, of course. Just in case the worst happens. Donut, would you pass me the jam? You’re a star.” 

Simmons is too busy being creeped out by that to try and talk to Grey for a moment. If Lopez and Grey were disturbing  _ before,  _ they only grew more so once they started talking to each other. It’s like listening to a serial killer have a phone conversation with a fellow murderer; you can only hear one half of the conversation but that just somehow makes it even more horrifying. 

“So the translation device is finally working?” he finally manages as Grey spreads some jam on her toast. 

“That’s right!” she says. “I’ve already installed the program into both of our helmets, and I think I’ll be spending the day doing the same for everyone else, and maybe making something a little more external as well for helmetless conversations.” 

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Thanks.” 

He’ll be meeting the alien _ tonight.  _ And they’ll actually be able to understand each other. It makes him feel nervous and tentatively excited, and he knows that the hours until the meeting are going to be some of the longest in his life. 

It’s just as he’s finished helping clean up after breakfast and puts on his helmet and  _ almost  _ opens up the channel he has with the alien and Grey to try and get him to talk as usual out of habit that he stops and realizes that, firstly: he doesn’t have to do that any longer, and secondly: the alien can understand him _ now.  _ He could just open up a channel just between the two of them right now and talk to him, right now, alone, and be understood.  _ Right now.  _

He’s paralyzed by suddenly having that option. It feels so vast and important and he can’t mess this up and he’d only have one first conversation with him and it would only take that much for the alien to realize how-- how  _ bad  _ Simmons was, just all around. 

He’s used to disappointing people, though. He’s always been like this, and he’s never improved. He shouldn’t be making such a big deal out of it, but-- he hasn’t had something so… good. In a while. It’s been nice, having the little they’ve had together, even if he’s not sure it can even be counted as the barest minimum of a relationship, considering the language barrier, considering they’ve been in each other’s physical presence for all of maybe ten minutes. 

They were some pretty nice ten minutes, though. Trying for more seems greedy, seems risky… but it’s just  _ talking,  _ right? Even Simmons can do talking. He will totally be able to do this without having a mortifying meltdown on comms. 

He walks into his tent and gets on a channel alone with the alien before he let’s himself realize that that is actually super likely to happen. 

Silence, and then, before Simmons has quite worked up the nerve to speak up, someone else does so first. “... Simmons?” 

The translator doesn’t even need to touch that for him to understand it; it’s his name, not a word, and hearing the alien say it without so much as a warning shocks him, makes him draw in a sharp inhale that some might say was a gasp. 

“Um!” he manages after a long startled moment, his voice pitched perhaps a little too high. “Hi! How do you know my name?” 

“The woman mentioned it,” he says, and the translator does have to help him with this one. 

“But not her own?” he asks, grasping at the distraction. 

“Well, um, she might’ve mentioned it, yeah, but I don’t really remember it.” His tone sounds like he’s trying for relaxed and casual, but he doesn’t quite manage to hit the mark. 

_ But you remember mine,  _ he doesn’t say, because he desperately doesn’t want to make this conversation weird. Coincidence, it was probably just a coincidence. 

“Well, it’s Grey,” he says instead. And then, belatedly because he’s an idiot and sweating way too much wow, “What’s yours?” 

“Grif.” 

It’s a nice name, but he doesn’t think he can say that, Grif already knows his name so he can’t introduce himself back, fuck, fuck, what’s he supposed to say now, help, abort--

“You’re coming to the meeting this sunset?” Grif asks, saving him. He seems to be making a habit of it. 

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Of course. Everyone is.” 

Another lull in the conversation. Maybe that’s okay? Maybe--

“... Are you okay?” 

Simmons blinks at the question. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Why wouldn’t I be?” 

_ Don’t say because you’re a cripple, don’t, dont _

“Well I did find you choking to death on water a little while ago.” 

“That was--”

“And then you screamed for no reason a little while later and I never found out why?” 

“I wasn’t--” He flounders for an explanation. Would _ I stubbed my toe _ fly? Well, Grif didn’t have toes, so maybe? 

“And you look waaay too tired.” 

“Hey! That’s just my face!” 

“And so skinny!” 

“Fuck you too!” 

Before his words could catch up with his brain and he could be properly horrified at shouting  _ fuck you  _ at the person he’d been so nervous about talking with only minutes ago, Grif laughed at him. What an asshole. (What a  _ fun _ asshole.) 

“See you at the beach, Simmons,” Grif says, and hearing his name said by that voice is still too much of a thrill to be justifiable. “Have a nap and a meal before you come so you’ll look less like a starved racoon.” 

“How do you even know what a racoon is!?” he asks, but Grif’s already hung up. 

He does  _ not _ look like a starved racoon. Does he? Great, now he’s anxious about that. 

But he’s far less anxious about the meeting than he was one conversation ago. He supposes that’s something. (A _ lot _ something.) 

**Author's Note:**

> Check out this fantastic [fanart](https://boyslushie.tumblr.com/post/165142299306/heres-a-scene-from-not-so-typical-by) tumblr user [boyslushie](https://boyslushie.tumblr.com/) made of the rescue scene in chapter two! Thank you so much!!! Ah, and now they've drawn (one of, lol) the face touching [scene](https://boyslushie.tumblr.com/post/165527431586/simmtember-day-19-another-scene-from) in chapter 7! It looks great! And they strike again with yet another great [mergrif](https://boyslushie.tumblr.com/post/166095498661/griftober-day-5-wanted-to-mess-around-with-that) right here. And here's another wonderful one with [Grif chilling in Simmons' helmet.](https://boyslushie.tumblr.com/post/166739348501/mer-grif-is-constantly-on-my-mind-i-just-need-you) Boyslushie is a lean, mean drawing machine! I ended up liking that one so much I edited it into chapter 9 (with permission ofc). I could have put that in a LOT of places though, wow, Grif sure is just lounging around in Simmons' helmet in... most of his scenes. Oops. 
> 
> And now [redwryvern](http://redwryvernart.tumblr.com) has drawn [shark mer Locus!](http://redwryvernart.tumblr.com/post/165579606335/samuel-sharkus-sharktez-from-primtheamazings) He looks great and I love him.
> 
> CHECK OUT THIS COMIC OF CHAPTER 10 BY CAPTAINKONOT IT IS [*AMAZING*](http://78.media.tumblr.com/eac54f21808e8fb1b3e7a3a4b1aa8faf/tumblr_ozfjkggNIc1txteyuo1_r1_1280.jpg)


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